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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 20 Jun 1963

Vol. 203 No. 10

Finance Bill, 1963: Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." Debate resumed on the following amendments:
1. To delete all words after "That" and substitute:
"Dáil Éireann declines to give a Second Reading to the Bill, Part VI of which provides for a turnover tax which will result in an increase in the cost of living with undue hardship on the consuming public and the business community."—(Deputy Sweetman.)
2. To delete all words after "That" and substitute:
"while willing to support reasonable taxation proposals to maintain public services, including proposals in the Finance Bill, the Dáil declines to give a Second Reading to the Bill unless and until the turnover tax, which will increase the cost of living and impose grave hardships on the community, is deleted."—(Deputy Corish.)
3. To delete all words after "That" and substitute:
"Dáil Éireann declines to give a Second Reading to the Bill until the wishes of the people thereon have been ascertained by means of a general election."— (Deputy Dr. Browne.)

When I spoke before the adjournment of the House last night, I said that I had had a very considerable experience as a trader and that I had closely examined the difficulties of the Government's proposals with regard to the turnover tax. I said that this was not a device which had been produced after sufficient examination of the difficulties of its operation. It is not a skilfully measured instrument of tax gathering. In the operation of taxation in the past, account has always been taken of any injuries which it might impose. By relating those injuries to the context of the whole, a decision can be made that certain taxes should be imposed, even though they do impose difficulties but that those difficulties can be borne because of the luxury character of the articles selected for taxation.

This turnover tax is in a different category. It is a brutal, sledgehammer attack on all the prices of all goods— charged on everything, whether luxury or necessary, and on everybody whether impoverished, unemployed or prosperous. It is unselective, unskilful and unscientific in its frontal attack on the people's pockets.

I believe nobody has examined how this thing will work. We have commissions of many kinds but none has examined this. Nobody has conducted an investigation into the global conception of this turnover tax. I think the Minister does not know how it will work. I believe his officers do not know how it will work. I am pretty sure the Revenue Commissioners do not know.

I am a trader. All my life, I have been engaged in trade and I do not know how it will work but I fear it. I fear what it will impose. I fear, selfishly, the danger to my balance sheet as a businessman. A good year in my business gives me four per cent net profit on my turnover. That is my livelihood. That, I think, is the average for all reasonably well-conducted businesses in the retail trade in this country. Therefore, it is quite obvious I cannot pay this tax. That would leave me with one and a half per cent of my gross turnover to live on and it would be equivalent to taxing my income 60 per cent.

When the Minister says he does not mind if the traders do not pass it on, I must only regard his observation as cynical and callous. However, there is another thing which I fear if I cannot pay it myself—and obviously, I cannot. I fear I cannot successfully collect it from my customers without injuring my relationship with those customers. I cannot break down 240 pence in the manner required—not without reducing the tax on small sales or I can omit it altogether in many instances and at the same time, increase the tax on larger sales so as to carry the losses I have incurred on these smaller sales. If I do this, I incur the displeasure of those who are asked to pay more than 2½ per cent—but that is what the Minister suggests I should do.

If the tax is 2½ per cent, why should the person who spends 20/- with me have to pay 4/- and the ten persons who spent only a few shillings with me have to pay nothing? It would seem to me to be inequality but the Minister says: "You pay me 2½ per cent every month and get it where you like." It is a bit like the marauding mediaeval overlord I mentioned last night. It is very simple for the Minister.

I must employ people to work this thing and that will add to my costs. I must also pay tax on any of the tax I collect. There is another difficulty which is quite common in the trade of which I am a member. A great number of moderately-sized retailers in this country also do a small wholesale business. They supply smaller shops with goods for resale. That is common in Ireland. It means they must now set about establishing machinery to divide those sales from their other sales. It is a further impost on the profits I seek and hope to keep on making in my business.

This tax will be collected on every thing sold in this country, on food of every kind, whether it be for the rich or the poor. It will be collected on the milk bottle in the morning, on the tea, bread and butter and, if not butter, on the margarine. Children's school books will have to bear it. The shoes and stockings of the household, the ordinary clothing, will have to bear it. The television set, of course, will have to bear it as well as the petrol. The medicine and the necessaries for the poorest living will have to bear it. Consider coal for the fire, electric light, the butcher's bill, the fish on Friday, the sweets the child buys at the corner shop, the packet of matches, the smokes and drinks. All will have to bear that tax. The newspapers, I suppose, will pay it, or will they? I cannot see that they are exempted. I cannot see how some of this tax will be passed on to the newspapers. I suppose the daily sale of newspapers in this country will probably be 400,000 or 500,000. I am only guessing, but I think it will be something like that figure. That should represent a retail sale turnover of roughly £5,000 or £6,000 every day. The Minister should require and collect from that £5,000 or £6,000, on the terms of this Bill, £125 to £150 every day. How will that be collected? If £5,000 or £6,000 worth of newspapers are sold every day, and they must pay £125 to £150 tax, how will that tax be collected? What can be added to the cost of an ordinary newspaper?

A great multitude of articles are sold by stores for small domestic purposes—the little household appliances, the little luxuries, like confectionery, cheap cosmetics, the magazines and weekly periodicals. I do not know how they will pay it. I do not know how many little traders will be driven out of business because they cannot collect this tax on these things and they cannot pay it to the Minister because they cannot collect it.

I think this is an ill-considered and ill-advised proposal because it will not work. I warn the Minister of that. I have a great deal more experience of the retail trade than the Minister or the advisers of his Department. Yesterday, the Minister praised the work of the accountants of this country. I think any accountant would shudder at the slipshod proposals which this Bill contains.

Yesterday, the Minister for Industry and Commerce said he had no illusions that people like taxation and would not reject it, if given the opportunity. That is quite true. I think the people will emphatically dislike the chaos which this kind of taxation will bring. It is not tax, in the normal sense of the word, to which they would object. It is the method of collection which they would find undesirable.

The Minister cannot say to the retail trade: "I want £10½ million: get it anywhere you like". That is what he is saying. It is not good enough. It is a completely mediaeval conception of fund-raising by this State. I believe the law must be precise. This is a completely imprecise proposal.

If the law is to be precise, specified articles should be taxed at source to raise the amount the Minister requires and provision could be made not to add profits to the tax on such goods but to send them through the distributing channels until they got to the retailers counter with only net tax added to cost. The trade would put up with that. They would grumble but they would accept it. The people would grumble but they would probably accept the net result. However, the trade will not accept that there is to be a loose, free-for-all, in which retailers will decide that as Mrs. Murphy will not pay any tax on 1/2d. worth of goods, Mrs. Murphy, junior, will pay tax on 15/- worth and pay a higher rate of tax to compensate for the loss of tax on the smaller sale. That seems an eminently commonsense view of the situation.

I do not know who estimated that this tax would yield £10½ million. On the basis of retail sales, the figures would run to £13 or £14 million, and that, without any change in the percentage. Does the Minister think that in future he or any of his successors will be able to resist the temptation to add one per cent or two per cent to this form of taxation when the organisation for collecting it is running, however incompetently? Whether Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael sit over there in future, this tax in its present form must go. It must be replaced by a tax which courageously defines and lists the articles bearing the tax. That would create a fabric of taxation that might be crushing and very widespread, but the burden would at least be clear in its purpose and effect and would not be befogged by a lazy ministerial instruction to traders to pass it on and carry it where they like. That is not the way the State should operate. That is what the people of Dublin told the Minister last week in the by-election and I think it is what the people of the country would tell the Government, if they had the opportunity.

I have never yet seen a Budget which did not result in opposition to whatever form of tax was decided on for the collection of the money. We would have the self-same cry if it were proposed to put a couple of pence on the pint, on whiskey or on tobacco. Up to now, the main sources of tax revenue have been drink, tobacco and petrol. I consider this is a fair measure under which everyone pays a little.

About a fortnight ago, I had a rather strange experience when I went into a local public house one evening. It was packed. The owner of the house immediately attacked me on the turnover tax. I said I was prepared to leave it to the jury, the jury being her packed public house. I told them what the position was. I said: "Most of you are working now in decent employment. Money has to be found for industry to provide more employment for our people. Is there any man listening to me here who would not be willing to pay 6d. in the £ out of his wages to give employment to the poor devil who has no work? If there is, let him put up his hand." Not a single hand went up. I told them we had to find a few million pounds to modernise the plant at Irish Steel and to increase the employment there. I told them: "I am in hunting a couple of farmers to get cheques off them to provide a new industry in the town of Midleton." Five of these factories are going up. The employment in the factories themselves will be 2,000 and on the land, from 15,000 to 20,000. The Government contribution to that will roughly be £1½ million. When I asked them if any man would grudge paying 6d. in the £ to provide that employment, not one hand went up.

This talk by Deputy Barry is pure nonsense. The Licensed Association meet and decide to raise the price of the pint or put 2d. or 3d. on whiskey. There is no humming or hawing. On it goes, and there is no noise from anybody. When speaking on the Budget, I gave instances of what was happening. You can go into the large drapery shops in Cork today and buy a dozen of eggs at from 9d. to 1/- less than that shop paid for them. You can buy butter there at 3/11 a 1b., which cost the shops 4/4 to buy. Why? Because the other articles they are selling carry with them a profit of roughly 50 per cent, and in the case of British drapery goods, it is 63 per cent. That is one of the reasons why you have this anxiety in Dublin to sell English goods.

I hear a lot of talk about the Dublin North East by-election. I take about as much notice of that as if we had a ballot box above on the Lee Road in Cork, that is, the mental hospital. I would place about the same value on both. I say that as one who has survived a lot of elections. The main prop to get Fianna Fáil out in the election of 1948 was that £9 million was going to be spent on a new Dáil. I tried to find some foundation for that when the election was over. All I could find was this, at column 1027 of the official Reports of 25th May, 1945:

I think it is a terrible mistake for us to shy away from undertaking great enterprises in the immediate future because they appear to cost a lot. This is a time when we should mobilise credit and use it boldly and resolve, if necessary, to repay it over the next 100 years. The extension of credit should not deter us from embarking on bold schemes at the present time, always provided that they are good schemes. As a start in that direction, one good thing would be to build a new Oireachtas, and it would prove to be an economy in the long run. We are eternally patching and tinkering with these buildings in order to make them adequate to fulfil the functions of an efficient Parliament. It is common knowledge that half the Deputies cannot find accommodation in which to write a letter. Even the Ministers' rooms are inadequate——

The relevance of all that seems to be very doubtful.

This is the kind of thing that put out Fianna Fáil at that general election, but the only individual who made that statement was the Leader of the Opposition, Deputy Dillon. He went on:

The permanent officials are obliged to sit in cramped quarters up at the top and their teeth are made to chatter with the noise of the machinery in the basement, because we are trying to dislodge a beetle through the medium of a vacuum cleaner in the roof.

I have seen an election won on that kind of thing.

Fianna Fáil were accused of squan-dermania. When I read Deputy Dillon's suggestion that we should mobilise credit and use it boldly and resolve, if necessary, to pay it back over the next 100 years, I looked to see whether he had carried out that policy during the three-and-a-half years he was Minister for Agriculture. This is what I found, as reported at column 168 of the Dáil Report of 23rd April, 1952:

Mr. Corry asked the Minister for Finance if he will state the total amount of State borrowing (a) in each of the years 1947-48 to 1951-52, inclusive; (b) in the years 1932-33 to 1947-48, inclusive, and (c) in the years 1923-24 to 1931-32, inclusive.

Here is the answer:

The net amounts borrowed for Exchequer purposes in the years mentioned by the Deputy were as follows:

(a) 1947-48, £5,004,000;

1948-49, £8,951,500;

1949-50, £20,539,000;

1950-51, £21,686,000;

1951-52, £38,938,900;

(b) 1932-33 to 1947-48, inclusive —£51,316,400;

(c) 1923-24 to 1931-32, inclusive —£29,326,800.

That was £98 million borrowed to run the nation for three and a half years. That was portion of the price of what was familiarly known as the "Johnny Costello pint". I also asked the Minister on the same date the amount——

Would the Deputy relate all this to the Budget proposals?

I am stating what happened in previous Budgets where the people were relieved of taxation considered necessary to run the country for the year, and the results, and who paid it. In this case, I asked the Minister if he would state the amount payable and paid in interest and sinking fund in the financial year 1947-48 and the total amount payable in interest and sinking fund in the financial year 1952-53. The reply was that in 1947-48 the total amount payable was £4,224,334 and in 1952-53, that jumped to £10,080,400. When those gentlemen were gone, the Fianna Fáil Government coming after them had to raise that amount from the people. That is the difference.

We are entitled to ask now how they intend to get the money. I said previously that there was a little difference between the Parties. We believe that when money is borrowed, you should get, through revenue each year, the principal and interest to repay it. Fine Gael believe in borrowing to pay the interest on what they already owe. That is the difference between the two Parties in regard to financial matters. We are entitled to know what is their policy. How do they propose to get this money? Whom will they tax for it?

That is the function of the Government, not the Opposition.

That is a new brain-wave.

No, it is established practice.

Speaking with a full sense of responsibility as chairman of the largest agricultural organisation in the country, if I am to take the line of policy suggested by the published statements of the Leader of the Opposition, I do not think anybody, farmer or labourer, would vote for them in support of that policy.

That is what the Taoiseach said when in Opposition— exactly what Deputy Dockrell said now.

I suggest that when a Deputy definitely proposes the abolition of what I might call the most profitable industry our farmers have today, the beet industry, and alludes to it as a daft scheme, that must be taken as policy. Deputy Dillon said:

Is there any Deputy who would argue with me that the community is getting better value in the maintenance of that daft scheme at a cost of £3 million per annum than it would get if we were in a position to raise the family allowance in every poor house from 2/6 to 7/-? Every farmer in this country who has four children in his house could receive for the benefit of these children 14/- per week in lieu of the 5/-he is now getting.

That is the only basis on which I can judge the policy of Fine Gael in regard to beet. That was the statement of their Leader here on 6th June, 1946.

He became Minister for Agriculture two years afterwards. We had gone to the trouble, in co-operation with the Irish Sugar Company, of carrying out costings on over 400 farms and on those costings, the farmer was paid for the production of beet just as at present. But the first lead we got from the Fine Gael Government at that time was a letter to the directors of the Sugar Company which said that the Government had been far too generous to the farming community and that they could not for a moment agree to any increase in the price of beet in the coming season. That was signed by the then Deputy Morrissey, Minister for Industry and Commerce, and agreed to, of course, by the Minister for Agriculture. In the following year, there was an immediate reduction in the acreage of beet and the Irish people had to import 75,000 tons of foreign sugar which, landed here, cost £12 per ton more than the best Irish sugar. That was practically £1 million more they had to pay for the foreign sugar than they would have paid for Irish sugar. That was followed on this policy and this statement by the Leader of the Opposition.

That was his attitude. Now that industry has spread out into another branch, a branch that is taking very well with the farming community, giving them a further opportunity of increasing their incomes in growing a crop that will pay them, as well as giving an enormous amount of employment. Is that the way Deputy Dillon would suggest to get the couple of million pounds he would require if he were over here for the next 12 months. Scrapping the beet factories and disemploying the men? What hope is there for agriculture if that is the attitude of the Leader of the Opposition? What hope have we of carrying on the factories into which the shareholders have put their money? The factories are ready to go ahead.

Let us consider what the position would be, if there were a change of Government in the morning. The last time we had a change one industry in my constituency in Haulbowline immediately felt the blast. The blast was a fairly severe one. They were not allowed to buy billets to produce good steel. They were not even allowed to produce first-grade scrap on the instructions of Deputy Sweetman and Deputy Norton. Third-rate scrap was considered good enough. Things went so far that the general manager of the company threw up his job and walked out. The steel produced there came up here and was rejected by a Dublin merchant. The number of workers in the industry was reduced by over 230 in the 3½ years that that Government were in office. That was the position adopted by that Government in order to find money. They were not allowed to buy billets. They were not even allowed to buy railway rails.

These are the things at which we have to look; these are the things we have to consider. The position all round was practically the same. Take the dairy farmers. The attitude of the Leader of the Opposition towards dairying is an extraordinary one. Here is his statement:

We are subsidising butter production to the tune of £2 million per annum. How long will that go on? Do we expect butter to get dearer in the markets of the world? Do we expect a time in the early future when the price of butter will become so adjusted that it will be possible to suspend this subsidy or do we intend to continue producing milk for conversion into butter at an annual cost to the taxpayer of £2 million a year? I want to go on record most emphatically that I think such a policy is sheer insanity and is purely pursued for the purpose of maintaining prestige and incompetence in the office of the Minister for Agriculture.

That was the statement of the Leader of the Opposition on that particular aspect of our agriculture. When he became Minister for Agriculture, the first shot he fired was to adjust the price of milk by telling the farmers, who were then getting ¼ a gallon, that they would get "one bob" a gallon for the next five years, and were they prepared to produce it at that? That was his attitude towards the agricultural community. I do not believe it has changed. I have seen nothing go on record since that statement was made by the Leader of the Opposition that would show any change in his attitude in regard to agriculture. He was going to save another £2 million there. You have £3 million saved by closing the beet factories and £2 million saved on the dairy farmers, making £5 million altogether—£5 million of the £10 million for which Deputy Barry is looking.

I am not looking for it.

He went even further. The first job they did after they became a Government was to reduce the price of wheat, followed by a reduction of £4 a ton on the price of feeding barley. Whatever about the feeding barley, I was certainly not surprised at his attitude in regard to wheat. I laugh now when I hear Deputy Dillon looking for a price for wheat. Here is his statement of 18th June, 1947, at column 2050 of Volume 106 of the Official Report:

...for the first time since the emergency, we had the enthralling, stimulating and surprising experience of eating bread made out of Irish wheat. Before you ate it you had to hold it out in your hands, squeeze the water out of it, then tease it out and make up your mind whether it was a handful of boot polish or a handful of bread. If it was boot polish you put it on your boots or shoes and if it was bread you tried to masticate it if you were fit.

That was the statement of the Leader of the Opposition on bread made from Irish wheat. What hope had the farmer growing wheat of any kind of a fair deal from that leader?

I have heard this so often from the Deputy that I am beginning to think it is his own statement.

That is the policy laid down for agriculture by the Leader of the Opposition. Apparently that is the manner in which the greater portion of this money will be found by them. We are entitled to know. We are entitled to have some definite statement for the protection of the wheat growers and the beet growers of this country. We are entitled to have some definite statement with regard to the position of the milk producers. These are the statements we are entitled to have from the Opposition, something from which they will not run away if the miracle ever happens and they succeed again in crossing the floor of this House.

These are serious matters. One comes along and finds that in the year 1963 we are still paying £6 million odd per year principal and interest for the £98 million borrowed by those gentlemen to run this country for 3½ years. I will not deal now with what happened when the people gave them a second chance. We saw the excitement and the fright during that period. We saw everything dropped. I have been a member of the Cork County Council for close on 40 years and I remember that the grant money that should have come was not forthcoming. They had no money to pay anything. They had a clear majority in this House at that time. Still they cleared out after three years. Why? Now they want another chance. They want it, if you please, on the result of the North-East Dublin election and I have given my opinion on those electors already and will not take it any further.

As one who knew his father in this House, I am glad to see Deputy Belton here but, of course, I would prefer to see one of our own. It is the luck of the game. If Fine Gael succeeded in bluffing the people for three weeks, they were lucky.

Let us see how this tax works out. Let us see the result of the first year of its operation and how many moans there will be. As I told the Minister for Finance when speaking on the Budget, I will guarantee here and now that 80 per cent of Deputy Barry's class, the shopkeepers, will be looking for income tax relief next April on the two and a half per cent which they will not have passed on, and he knows that just as well as I do. They will be looking for income tax relief on it as an extra cost. That is how they stand. Those are the facts as I see them.

We have succeeded in turning the scale as far as employment is concerned. It has cost money. You cannot provide employment here for men who formerly had to seek employment in England without the State stepping in and being pretty generous in regard to manufacturers who provide that employment. We have done that and are doing it.

As I said at the beginning, when I asked the ordinary workers whether or not they were prepared to pay sixpence in the £ in order to provide employment for the unfortunate fellow who has no work, I could not get one out of over 60 in the room to put up his hand against it. Is there a Deputy on the other side of the House who, if we said we wanted to get this money by putting sixpence on the glass of whiskey, would not rush into the lobby against it, making as much noise about it as they are doing now? If we said we would get it by putting a tax on tobacco there would be the same result. If we said we would put an extra tax on petrol, I do not know what they would do.

These are the facts in regard to this matter and I do not wish to delay the House further in regard to them.

I want to make it clear that we are not opposed to the imposition of the necessary taxation to raise sufficient revenue to meet essential national expenditure but we are opposed to reckless and indiscriminate expenditure without securing value for the money spent or deciding, in the case of either capital or current expenditure, a correct and appropriate order of priorities. Every rational person recognises that essential State services must be maintained. These refer to the ordinary current expenditure by the State Departments or State social benefits such as social welfare, health and other services. But, we are opposed to spending merely for the sake of spending without due regard being paid to the purposes for which the money is spent, the type of work being undertaken and which involves heavy demands on the community to raise the funds to meet the expenditure.

This Finance Bill centres almost entirely on the proposal contained in Part VI, which provides for the turnover tax. I want to make it clear that we are not opposed to improved social services. In fact, on each of the occasions that we were in office improved social services and health services were provided. Indeed, it has often been remarked that every time there is a change of Government old age pensions are increased. What I want to ensure is that when social welfare beneficiaries are given increases these monetary increases will not be nullified or reduced by a rise in the cost of living. The difference between our approach to this matter and the approach of Fianna Fáil is that under Fianna Fáil there has been a very steep and continuous rise in the cost of living which has offset any monetary increase in the benefits paid to old age pensioners, widows and orphans and the recipients of unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance. This is bad social policy and bad economic policy.

I want at this stage to examine the various views that have been published concerning the proposal to introduce a purchase or sales tax. This matter, as Deputies will recollect, was considered by the Commission on Income Taxation and it is well to recall what the Commission recommended. It is equally important in considering that to remember that this proposal, which is not the one enshrined in the turnover tax, but the proposal included in the recommendation of the Majority Report of the Commission on Income Taxation, was carried by a majority of only one vote. So far as I can find, there were six members of the Commission in favour of a purchase tax and five against it. Having considered the matter and having expressed their views in the Report, the majority eventually came to the conclusion included in the recommendation made in Paragraph 115 on Page 50 of the Third Report, in which it is said:

We accordingly recommend the introduction of a purchase tax at a rate or rates of between 7½ and 15 per cent on a base of £65/67 millions wholesale value, but in any event excluding—

and the exclusions are important—

(a) goods essential for agricultural production,

(b) goods essential for industrial manufacture,

(c) exports, agricultural and industrial,

(d) food, particularly essential food,

(e) fuel,

(f) newspapers and books,

(g) household non - durable goods,

(h) goods already subject to heavy customs and excise duties, e.g. tobacco,

(i) works of art, and goods that are primarily of a cultural nature.

They go on—and, indeed, when you come to this part, you see how innocent these men were of the economic facts of life—

We recommend that the purchase tax be a part-substitute for income tax and that the revenue from it be used to reduce the rate of income tax.

Of course, there has been no proposal in the Budget to reduce income tax and I want to refer the House to the views expressed by Professor Meenan in an Addendum to the Minority Report:

Finally I cannot believe for a moment that the implied bargain of a reduction in the standard rate of income tax to five shillings in return for a limited purchase tax would be regarded as inviolable. Some day or other the standard rate would begin to inch upwards again and the final result would not be a redistribution of taxation but a new tax.

In addition to the views expressed in the Minority Report, the views of three economists are quoted. They are three persons from different universities, all of whom were invited by the Commission to give their views on the tax. The Rev. W. Paschal Larkin, O.F.M.Cap., Professor of Economics, University College, Cork, said:

The expediency of a general purchase tax is very controversial. Its suitability for this country is very questionable owing to our low per capita income, and our rather static consumption habits. Even in England ...there is a strong campaign for further substantial reductions in purchase tax, and its ultimate abolition.

Professor G.A. Duncan, Professor of Political Economy, University of Dublin, said:

All (sales or purchase) taxes possess three qualities in common:

(i) They are excise duties, falling with greater or less inequity according to their technical construction;

(ii) They are regressive, since, to raise revenue in significant amounts, they must fall on articles of common consumption;

(iii) They impose vast amounts of paper-work and accounting on traders, and consequently predispose to evasion.

I doubt if sales, purchase or turnover taxes have had a happy history anywhere, except as excises at wholesale level expressed specifically on easily traceable commodities—and then their produce is somewhat inflexible.

Mr. David O'Mahony, Lecturer in Economics, University College, Cork, said:

A purchase tax would tend to raise the cost of living and thus stimulate demands for increases in money incomes, which would in turn increase costs and thus impair our competitive position.

The Report says:

It will be noted that none of these three economists expresses himself in favour of a purchase tax.

There is even more compelling evidence in the memo submitted by the Revenue Commissioners to the Income Tax Commission and dated 27th August, 1957. It says:

Theoretically the retail stage is the ideal level, i.e. the tax would be charged on the actual price at which the commodity is sold to the final consumer. In practice however, because of the huge number of traders who would be brought within the tax net, a tax at the retail level would be costly and difficult of administration, and taxation at an earlier level is to be preferred. A tax at the wholesale level would seem to be feasible in this country. It would not be unduly expensive to administer and would be preferable to taxation at the manufacturing level.

The Capital Investment Advisory Committee in their Third Report stress the importance of encouraging enterprise by changes in taxation and increasing tax incentives for the investment of savings at home, for the investment at home of past savings now held overseas and for the attraction of foreign capital.

All those views expressed by the Revenue Commissioners and the three economists rejected and condemned a purchase tax or a sales tax, and they would have been in stronger opposition to a turnover tax which was not confined to a limited number of commodities. All these views rejected it on different grounds.

Of course, it is in conflict with the views expressed in Economic Development where it is stated on page 22— and it was published with Government authority and approval in 1958:

Indeed, the limit of taxable capacity has been reached in some directions and it is difficult to see any method by which additional revenue on a substantial scale could be raised without injurious effects on employment and on economic activity in general. A general purchase tax, for instance, would have an immediate reaction on sales of Irish products and would probably, in the end, have inflationary effects on wages and salaries and the cost of living.

It went on to say:

It is desirable that taxes on spending should bear most heavily on less essential imports as this helps to ensure the retention at home of as much as possible of the stimulating effect of capital formation on employment.

All those views expressed after serious consideration by economists and the Revenue Commissioners, who had the accumulated experience of the various proposals as well as practical experience of the difficulties involved in raising revenue, were opposed to a purchase tax, and not merely a purchase tax on a limited range of commodities and, with the exception of the majority report which was carried by one vote only, all the people who were appointed on the Income Tax Commission were opposed to it. The three economists I have mentioned rejected it and gave reasons for rejecting it.

There is an even more compelling argument which I quoted previously but I think it is important to refer to it again. I quote now from a speech made by the Taoiseach and reported in the Official Report of 17th May, 1956, at column 621, volume 157. He said:

I think it is true to say that most people who have written upon the theory of public finance subscribe to the view that it is desirable that the number of separate taxes should be kept as few as possible, that the State should rely for the bulk of its revenue on a few main taxes and should not try to multiply the number of separate taxes.

He went on to say:

There is an obvious reason for that. It is undesirable that the hand of the tax-gatherer should be brought into business. The number of businesses subject to the regulation which is necessarily involved in the collection of taxes should be kept to a minimum. Government intervention for tax-raising purposes in any business always results in waste and is a cause of higher costs as well as of higher prices. Furthermore, it is obvious to expect that the smaller the yield from any tax the higher will be the proportion of that yield absorbed in collection expenses. And, the wider the number of taxes, the greater the prospect of successful evasion by individuals.

Deputies will recollect that when that speech was made by the Taoiseach, the commodities subject to taxes were what we in this country regarded as the traditional tax revenue commodities: beer, tobacco, petrol, income tax, surtax and perhaps a few others. Compared with the proposal enshrined in this Bill, they were infinitesimal in number compared with the limitless range of commodities affected by this measure.

One of the objections which was expressed not merely by the trade concerned but by all those who have written or spoken on this matter is the indiscriminate nature of the tax. In fact, I notice from the booklet which was published—and I gather from discussions with trade representatives— that this is to be a free for all. This booklet on the turnover tax says at page 7:

There may be special problems for retailers dealing in pre-packaged goods and commodities sold in small quantities at standard prices. These problems are capable of solution by adjustment of quantities and prices and the Minister for Finance is actively seeking the co-operation of the trading interests concerned in the matter. Slight changes in standard prices or quantities may, therefore, be expected but each retailer will continue to be free to decide the prices he will charge.

I remember a few years ago, when the obligation to sell bread by weight was removed, the vociferous criticism by the present Government when in Opposition, the criticism that people were being sold goods below a certain weight. Since then we have had here a Prices Bill which has been consigned to the archives and we also have the Fair Trade Commission. The Fair Trade Commission regulations as well as the legislation make it obligatory on traders not to enter into any agreement with wholesalers to fix prices or to agree on any restrictive practices. Any suggestion similar to that contained in this booklet would be contrary to the principles of the Fair Trade Commission. We must decide now is it proposed to jettison the policy behind the Fair Trade Commission, to jettison the general agreement not only in this House but throughout the country that fair trading rules should operate because the proposal in this booklet and the indications given at discussions which these traders have had is that they can make some arrangement and some adjustment in weight.

I do not believe there is in any country that has not a decimal system a satisfactory method available for operating a purchase tax. Sweden is a country in which there are comparable taxes but in Sweden there is a suitable small value coin available because of the decimal system but in this country under the present sterling system it is impossible for traders selling goods to operate this tax. It is relatively easy to suggest that, where people pay a grocery bill at the end of the week, the bill can be totted up and the two-and-a-half per cent marked on it but the average individual does not confine his purchases to one purchase at the end of the week. Every household finds that it has to buy certain commodities at different times and in different quantities and so far as small sales of essential foodstuffs are concerned this tax will press at the same rate on those commodities as it will press on a television set or some other electrical gadget that is not in general use or essential.

One of the strong recommendations in the majority report in this connection, objectionable and all as it may have been, had a far less objectionable basis and was not by any means as comprehensive as this one and it was only carried by a majority of one vote. I do not believe a major tax structure of this nature should be introduced in this country or in any other country on the mere chance vote of one person on a commission of this sort. However, that recommendation excluded essential food and fuel. I need not recite the other commodities that were excluded but all these representations were based on the assumption that food and fuel would be excluded.

Deputies who have spoken in the course of this debate have adverted to the impossibility of operating this tax on any sort of a fair basis because of the fact that there is no unit of currency small enough in general use to operate the tax equitably. I believe the views expressed in the leading article of the Irish Independent of 18th June are correct. The article reads:

Let us take a random example, say, cigarettes. The retailer has to pay tax on the cigarettes he sells. He does not have to recoup it from the customer who buys cigarettes; he may instead put the cigarette tax on the bread which he also stocks. The shop next door, however, may choose to put the cigarette tax on cereals. Up the road may be a shop which simply increases cigarette prices while the supermarket round the corner will not put up the prices of any commodity, but simply add 6d. in the £ to the customer's total bill. The result will be that in the same neighbourhood cigarettes, cereals and bread will be selling for widely different prices in each shop ... The confusion is made no easier by the fact that the retailer must pay tax on his sales of cereals and bread as well as on cigarettes.

That precisely sets out the possible consequences, although it is more than likely that bread or any other essential commodity will be sold at the same price because of the obvious trading disadvantages but it must be remembered that this tax taxes at the same level and at the same rate as non-essentials, essential food, clothing and fuel. One inevitable result of this and the arguments in favour of the fact that the cost of living will rise do not require to be requoted. They have been expressed by the present Taoiseach when in Opposition. They have been expressed by economists who have their views considered by the Commission on Income Taxation. They have been expressed in every recommendation, either minority or majority, of the Commission on Income Taxation. However, if any practical evidence is needed, the Retail Grocers and Allied Trade Associations have been notified by the trade union catering for the workers that once this tax goes on they will seek wage and salary adjustments to offset the effect. If that applies to one category of employee, does it not apply to all? Is it not inevitable that the same pattern of reaction will spread to other trade unions?

With that result, how is there any basis for the suggestions contained in the Government White Paper, Closing the Gap? The Government in that White Paper said:

The Government are convinced that it is necessary to avoid the damage to the national economy which would occur if further wage, salary or other income increases, whether in the public or private sector, took place before national production had risen sufficiently.

One of the objections to this tax contained in the memorandum submitted by the Revenue Commissioners was that it would affect Irish industry, that it would affect Irish industry equally with the goods sold from industrialists abroad. One of the objections was that it would lessen competitiveness and capacity. The Minority Report of the Commission on Income Tax states:

The Revenue Commissioners have informed us that "a sales tax must be viewed primarily as a device to bring within the tax net the products of Irish industry". Their memorandum goes on to point out that, by comparison with Britain, "there is less diversity and buoyancy here, less certainty of export outlets, and therefore greater sensitivity of industry to any adverse influences on the home demand for its products". For these reasons we believe that it would be very unwise to hamper our industries by the imposition of a purchase tax.

The purchase tax recommended was far less embracing and comprehensive than the turnover tax enshrined in this Bill. One of the arguments advanced by Government spokesmen is that this is necessary for social purposes and to improve social welfare benefits. In order to advance that case and give it greater authority, the Taoiseach has recently started to quote the Papal Encyclicals, Mater et Magistra and Pacem in Terris. Even in this week of Ascot fashions, I find it difficult to see the Papal Encyclicals as a suitable mantle for Fianna Fáil.

I want to look for a moment to see how we are considering social priorities and the way in which effective action has been taken. Social priorities do not stop at, nor are they confined to, social welfare services and the health services. Quite recently, we had the serious effects of the adverse weather in the collapse of houses in Dublin. No one suggests that the Government were responsible for that. Unfortunately, these events did occur, but what the Government could have done was to keep up the building rate which was operating before they came into office so that some of these people would have been taken out of those buildings.

It has become one of the easiest untruths for Fianna Fáil to propagate to say that fewer houses were being built and that there was some delay in the housing programme. The following are figures published in the Statistical Abstract for 1962 published last month. I want to quote figures for houses built in both rural and urban areas in 1956 and 1957, for part of which period we were in office. In the rural areas, 1,648 houses were built by the local authorities in 1956, and in the urban areas, 2,363 houses were built. In 1957, in the rural areas, there were 1,617 and in the urban areas, there were 3,167. The total number of houses built with State aid in 1956 was 9,837 and in 1957, 10,969. We come then to 1961/62 and we find for the rural areas in 1961,627 houses were built and in the urban areas, 836. In 1962, 455 houses were built in the rural areas and 783 in the urban areas, a total of 5,798 for 1961 and 5,626 for 1962— in one case slightly over half, and in the other, approximately half, the number built in 1956/57. If there has been any delay in rehousing people from the slums or unfit dwellings, the responsibility lies heavily on the present Government.

Then we come to employment. In local authority housing schemes in 1956, there were 6,045 employed and in 1957, the number had dropped to 3,500. In 1961, the last year for which figures are available, the number was 1,694. I believe we should have a proper order of social priorities but they are not confined merely to monetary benefits. One of the most urgent tasks—and I referred to this on the Budget debate—is to get an agreed capital development programme because at the same time as that drop in housing occurred, we saw in Dublin the erection of extensive buildings, public offices and State companies. I know the Government have no responsibility for private building and we all welcome as much building as possible but there should be an adequate system of priorities. Shortly before the houses collapsed in Dublin recently, we had three vast luxurious hotels opened in one week. Where public money is involved, and in these cases public capital expenditure is involved to the extent that some State companies participated in the undertakings, there should be a proper system of priorities. A first charge should be the needs of our people, particularly housing and hospital accommodation. Other building should then be put in an orderly queue.

When this Government were elected, they claimed that over a five-year period, they had plans to provide additional jobs for those anxious to secure work. I do not want to weary the House by repeating the proposals in the speech made by the then Deputy Lemass, but I do want to compare the results of our period of office and the present period. The following are figures taken from the Economic Statistics Issued Prior to the Budget. If we take the total number in employment, we find that in 1962, it was 1,068,000 and in 1956, 1,127,000. At the same time as that drop occurred, we had a continued substantial rise in emigration which most people agree was not less than 300,000 over the past six years. So that not merely have we not maintained the employment that previously existed but emigration is continuing.

Equally significant is the fact that today it costs between £50 million and £60 million more to run the State than it did in 1956-57. The audited expenditure on public services as published in the Book of Estimates showed that it was £109,456,420 and in 1962-63, it had gone to £153,987,980. The estimated figure for 1963-64 is £167,036,460. The country is entitled to know how it is that with fewer people in employment and with a continued rate of emigration, it costs £50 million or £60 million more now than it did six years ago to provide fewer people with essential services and with fewer people at work, fewer houses been built by local authorities.

Is it any wonder that people believe there is something wrong with the economic administration of this State and the policy operated by the Government? We do not say there has not been in the meantime a change in the value of money. To some extent, the value of money has tumbled and this would account for an increase in the cost of administering State services, but can anyone suggest the drop is sufficient to warrant an increase in State expenditure of from £50 million to £60 million?

One of the points made in the course of a speech by the Taoiseach to some Fianna Fáil committee in Mount Street last week was that Fianna Fáil policy was not widely understood and he suggested that Fine Gael were to blame. I believe the contrary is true, that it is precisely because the people understood the nature and extent of this Budget proposal—remember that on every platform throughout the recent by-election campaign the cry was that the money had to come from somewhere—that there was such an overwhelming reaction. It is no function or responsibility of the Opposition to do what the Taoiseach said. In the first place, they have not got the means of information, they have not got the knowledge, they have not got the financial statistics——

Or the courage.

The Opposition have not this information available and the Taoiseach, when in Opposition, repeatedly said it was no function of the Opposition to provide a programme or to indicate the way in which the Government should raise the money. It would be impossible, from the resources available to the Opposition. It is precisely because the Government policy was understood that it was rejected. Since the by-elections in Louth and East Cork in 1954, or the by-elections in Wicklow and North Cork in 1953, no more emphatic rejection of Fianna Fáil policy was ever expressed than in the recent by-election in Dublin. It is easy for Deputy Corry to say he paid no attention to it, but for the benefit of Deputies who do not understand the type of constituency involved, I would explain that it is a large constituency, embracing a large cross-section of the community—workers, white collar employees, shopkeepers, trade unionists and residential as well as business and industrial property owners. In that constituency, where Fianna Fáil won three out of the five seats at the general election, there was an overwhelming change of opinion. Not merely did Fine Gael increase their poll but the Fianna Fáil poll dropped. To give some indication of what the ordinary Fianna Fáil supporter and worker — I have no doubt they are getting fewer—thought, the defeated candidate said: "Our horse was carrying too much weight." It was not a bad description but what Fianna Fáil want now is to put the same weight on every individual in the country.

That is what the people have reacted against. Remember the opposition to this tax and its implications is not some device or some trumped-up effort by the Opposition to show its significance or its effects. Traders throughout the country, many of them, in the past, Fianna Fáil supporters, trade organisations, business groups, have come together and expressed not merely their opposition but their view that it is impractical, inequitable, unfair and discriminatory in the sense that it operates to the same extent on the lower-paid sections as it does on the better-off sections of the community, that it applies equally to the 21b. loaf, to the lb. of butter and the television set or some other non-essential commodity.

People understood precisely what this tax meant in a way in which it would be difficult for any political organisation, certainly without the services of a Party newspaper, to get across. The people rejected by an overwhelming vote any suggestions of illusory social benefits, and they were illusory because there is no use in giving out money in increases to old age pensioners and other social welfare classes and putting on with the other hand a tax on food and fuel. I have not much faith in the recommendations of the limited purchase tax suggested by the Majority Report of a recent committee, although I do not question their bona fides or anxiety to provide a remedy, but even in that report the suggestion of a tax on food or fuel was rejected.

One of the objections is not that this Budget taxes commodities not already taxed but that, in addition, it taxes commodities already bearing their share, commodities such as beer, spirits, tobacco and petrol. Spirits and tobacco might be regarded as non-essentials, but petrol affects the cost of production, affects the cost of distribution and, to a very considerable extent, this new tax will affect the cost of transport.

As well as the tax on these commodities, this Bill will also impose a tax which I criticised during the Budget debate—the tax on betting. People unfamiliar with the manner in which the bloodstock industry operates may feel that if people want to bet, they should pay tax on it. First of all, they are taxed already. There is a tax on bets in starting price offices; there is a tax imposed by the Racing Board on course bets with bookmakers; and there is a tax by the Racing Board in respect of bets placed with the totalisator.

My main reason for opposing this is that the bloodstock or racing industry in this country provides first-class employment. It is an industry spread throughout the rural areas, providing excellent male employment. In addition, a most valuable export trade, without subsidy, is established through this industry which has attracted to this country buyers from abroad as well as visitors to our racecourses. That industry is maintained in a variety of ways. One of these is that the Racing Board get, through a levy on course bets, revenue with which to pay for stakes as well as the carriage of horses to meetings.

One of the effects of this proposal is to add 2½ per cent to the already heavy tax on this industry. Last year, the Racing Board contributed a sum of £250,000 in stakes. As well, it contributed £50,000 towards the carriage of horses to meetings—a total of £300,000 in round figures. Stakes were augmented by contributions from the executives of individual racecourses. Despite all that, and to some people it seems a considerable contribution, many executives have found that it is inadequate to attract big entries and the proper type of horse. Many people have sought to run their horses in Britain and France because of the high stakes offered in these countries. In order to supplement the assistance given by the Racing Board, a number of executives have operated sponsored races in the past few years. Many public-spirited and sporting-minded companies, such as the Irish Sweep, Messrs. Guinness, Messrs. Jameson, Power and other big companies, and some not so big, have combined to sponsor in some cases, or in other cases have individually sponsored, races, all with the design to assist this industry.

At present course betting is taxed through the levy, the totalisator tax and SP betting. All these are hit heavily by the tax. Now, on top of this existing tax, additional taxation must be borne of a very heavy and penal character. It is a fact that despite the expansion in money incomes in the past 15 or 16 years, the total sum bet has remained consistently constant. There has been a switch on occasion between the tote and SP or course betting but the amount of money in bets has maintained a constant pattern and for that reason I believe that these proposals are against the interests of the bloodstock industry Some years ago, when a tax was put on for a year, many people expressed opposition to it. That tax was only for a year but this tax is forever, and I believe it is badly conceived and is against the interests of the bloodstock industry and the national interests as well.

One of the matters raised during the discussions on the Finance Bill in previous years is the need to increase the allowance for income tax purposes in respect of unearned income. I have repeatedly raised this matter, in common with other Deputies, and I want to refer to it again. In this country, the position is that the maximum unearned income allowance is £600. In Britain, the allowance up to recently was £800 and I think it was raised last year, or the year before, by a further £100.

I want to refer to this for two reasons. One of the objections to this turnover tax is that it is indiscriminate in its application. It applies to everyone, to the less well off as well as to those better able to pay. Quite a number of retired personnel, in addition to their pensions, which they have earned over the years, are also existing on some income derived from accumulated taxed savings. These savings are generally in some form of investment. Occasionally they may be in house property but generally they are in shares in industrial companies or some other form of investment.

These people have, by thrift and their own exertions, accumulated these savings during their working lives. While they were accumulating them, they were charged the regular rate of income tax on the basis of earned income. Now they are in retirement. Say a man and his wife have a combined pension of £600. On top of that, they have accumulated past savings and invested them to bring in an income of £200 a year. Therefore, they have a total income of £800. Because of the present limit of £600, fixed when the cost of living was lower and the value of money was higher, they are only allowed the unearned income allowance of £600 and have to pay in respect of the other £200 at the unearned income rate.

The reason this matter presses particularly heavily on these people is that, because of their total income, they are outside the scope of the ordinary social welfare benefits. They cannot get a medical card or anything of that kind and, because of their age, they are excluded from the benefits of the voluntary health scheme. Anyone who is on pension now was over age for inclusion in the voluntary health scheme. They have fallen between both stools. They are not entitled to a medical card or to social welfare benefits and they are excluded from membership of the voluntary health organisation.

This limit of £600 presses very heavily on what we should regard as a very decent element in the community, an element who, by their own exertions, save money for the future, an element who are contributing in their own small way to the State capital programme by investing in ESB loans, in national loans or in private industrial undertakings. They have, by their own exertions, accumulated past savings and they now find that if they had spent their money in the past, they would probably have been ultimately better off because they would now be entitled to some social welfare benefits and would not be obliged to pay income tax at the unearned income rate.

I believe that there is a very strong case for increasing the present allowance from £600 to £800 or £900. It has been raised twice in Britain since it was raised here, first, to £800 and lately, to £900.

I think the Deputy has left the Dáil under a misapprehension. A pension counts for earned income allowances.

A pension counts for an earned income allowance but the case I have in mind is a person who has a pension of £600 and unearned income of £200.

I just want to make the matter clear.

I do not want to mislead the Minister or the House. The £200 is subject to the unearned income allowance. Because of their thrift, they are excluded from social welfare benefits and because of their age, from voluntary health benefits.

There is another matter I wish to refer to, that is, the clause of the Bill dealing with relief for sporting bodies and athletic bodies. There is general approval of those proposals but I have had representations from the Aviation Club which has made representations to the Minister to the effect that the Bill is not clear as to whether the club will come within these exemptions. I mention it because the club already pays and has been assessed for tax purposes in the sum of approximately £800 a year in respect of the revenue derived from flying displays.

As the Minister and the House are aware, private flying is already subject to tax in the sense that they pay tax on petrol for use in private sport flying. The total tax which the club pays amounts in its estimate to about £1,500 a year. It may be that it is intended to exempt the club at this stage but obviously the revenue from it from the point of view of the State is not considerable. In fact, it is negligible. This club has done very considerable work in promoting interest in flying and aviation. Naturally, with present day costs, it is very difficult for a club of that nature to exist and I suggest the Minister should consider including it in the exemptions granted in Section 2 of the Finance Bill.

I want to conclude by expressing the view which I expressed at the beginning, that we are opposed to this Bill primarily because of the turnover tax. It is contrary to what was recommended by the Income Tax Commission where a purchase tax was recommended, provided it was accompanied by a reduction in income tax. We are opposed to this Bill because we believe this tax is inequitable and unfair in its application. We oppose it in the circumstances in which it has been introduced, in the circumstances in which a modified purchase tax was recommended by a bare majority in the report and—this is a very valid circumstance—in the circumstance in which this is a minority Government. On the first occasion the public had an opportunity of expressing their opinion through the ballot box since the last general election, they emphatically repudiated this tax as neither in the national interest nor in the interest of the individual citizen.

This is essentially a political debate promoted by the desire of Opposition Parties to extract the maximum Party advantage from the tax proposals put forward by the Government in the Budget which are an integral, indeed, an essential, part of the Government's whole social and economic policy. I do not object to that. Political debates are appropriate in the Dáil so long as nobody pretends they are anything more—so long as there is no suggestion that the Dáil is being presented with alternative policies or alternative tax proposals.

May I say that for such a well-publicised debate, it has turned out the dullest and the most boring of the session? If Deputies opposite really believe they are likely to succeed in putting the Government out of office as a result of the debate, I wish they would pay us the compliment of showing more interest in it.

There has been only one Fianna Fáil Deputy in this House for most of the day and the Minister.

You are boring us to death.

You were afraid to come in.

Every comprehensive programme submitted to any Parliament by any Government must involve a balance of advantages and disadvantages—a certain amount of take for every element of give. Deputies opposite, of course, are dealing only with the less popular aspects of the Government's policy, ignoring or giving only lip-service to the social and economic objectives which that policy is designed to realise.

I want to get this policy understood, Deputy Cosgrave says that our policy is sufficiently understood. I do not think that is so. Certainly, I want to remove from it all the ambiguities with which he clouded the policy of his Party. He told us they are in favour of taxation in general but not in particular. He told us they are in favour of higher Government spending in general but not in practice. He told us they are in favour of improved social services, provided they do not cost any money. That type of ambiguous nonsense is not good enough for the electorate and certainly it is not good enough to persuade the Dáil to vote for a change of Government.

The Government's attitude, clearly and precisely expressed—that is how we want it. We want no misunderstanding, no absence of clarity, no lack of precision. We believe that if the benefits of the economic progress achieved by the policy of the Government are to be distributed fairly amongst the people generally — not merely in improved social welfare arrangements but in better educational facilities, extended health services, higher housing standards, the various public services and amenities which contribute to better living for the people—it can be achieved only by Government action and effective Government action must include tax arrangements which will enable Government expenditure on these services to be increased and increased year after year at least in proportion to the growth of national income.

I do not believe it is true, as the Labour Party tried to suggest, that the extension of the Government's social programme can be financed solely by direct taxation, that is, the taxation of personal incomes or company profits. I believe that if we were to attempt to do that, we would place the burden upon too small a section of our population and that the effect would be to operate to slow down or to stop the whole process of economic growth upon which social betterment depends.

If we are to have a programme of social and economic progress supported by a sound system of taxation, then that system of taxation must be broadly based: that is the term we use and it is the most accurate we can devise. It cannot be financed by taxes upon tobacco and alcoholic drink alone. These taxes are far too uncertain as a source of revenue, far too liable to fluctuate by reference to circumstances which have no relationship to the economic programme of the country.

If the policy of making sure that economic progress is automatically and adequately translated into better living conditions for the people is to be made effective, then a wider system of taxation must be instituted. Most people accept this. I have discussed the Government's proposals with representatives of all classes of our community up and down the country. I find no reluctance to face up to the fact that some more widely-based system of taxation must be devised and that a turnover tax or a sales tax or some other system of taxation relating to retail sales had to come, if not this year then at some time.

Because most of everybody's income is spent in retail purchases, a system of taxation which is related to retail sales is by far the most effective in ensuring that the State revenue will increase in line with national resources and also that all will contribute to the economic and social progress of the country in proportion to their means. Of the various forms of taxation related to retail sales which could be devised or which have been tried out in other countries, the turnover tax— the one we have adopted—appears to be the easiest and cheapest to operate in Irish circumstances.

That is a precise and clear definition of the Government's position. If the other Parties in this House would be equally clear, then at least the net differences in our point of view would be understood. As far as the Labour Party are concerned, there has been an attempt in their amendment to the Second Reading motion to define their position. I do not think their position is very logical or very realistic but they have, by so doing, helped to emphasise the negative attitude of Fine Gael, to draw a greater degree of public attention to their evasion of the policy issues confronting the Government and the country, to their entire lack of economic and social objectives and to their irresponsible and demagogic attitude in all this discussion.

The Minister for Finance has already explained to the House that the Government were concerned to make sure that the new tax would not fall or would fall very lightly, on those people who could not afford to increase their present contributions to the public services. That is why this tax is linked with higher children's allowances. How many Deputies who spoke about the tax have related it to this proposal to increase children's allowances? By means of these allowance, we are making sure that the families of wage earners with children will have their incomes increased by amounts equal to or greater than the higher costs they may have to meet. We have increased also the old age pension and other social welfare payments by amounts which are greater than the additional costs resulting from the tax could mean for their recipients.

I will not make much of that, because I think it is very likely we would have proposed increases in the old age pension and other social welfare payments this year in any circumstances. At any rate, it is possible to estimate as far as almost half of the people are concerned—and that is the half with the lower incomes—they will be no worse off as a result of the introduction of the turnover tax, and they will be no worse off because the Government have taken measures to ensure that will be so.

The Labour Party are trying to foster the illusion that it is possible to finance economic and social programmes by income taxation alone, trying to propagate the viewpoint that the rest of the community are entitled to expect a greater increase in Government outlay for their benefit without making any contribution towards it. I believe that policy is impracticable in its financial implications and undesirable in its moral implications. I do not question the genuineness of the Labour Party's desire to support the social improvements the Government have in mind to bring about, but I question both their sincerity and political wisdom when they try to propagate the wrong belief that people can get these benefits without making a contribution towards them.

Our experience here in recent years should have driven home to us the truth that social progress does not automatically follow on economic progress. Social progress has to be organised, and if the benefits of economic progress are to be fairly distributed among the population, that has to be organised also, and organised by the Government. Economic progress, as we know and as we have proved, requires both planning and effort. There is no plan which human ingenuity can devise which would make it possible without effort. Social progress implies the willingness of all people to give up some part of their economic gains for community purposes—to meet the social obligations of the nation. Deputy Cosgrave can scoff at the idea of Fianna Fáil adopting this policy in relation to the Papal Encyclicals. We are not ashamed of it.

You do not do it. You simply talk about it.

This is what we are now proposing to do and asking the people to do.

Live people and get bread.

This is reality. The Deputy is only bluffing. The principle we are asking the Dáil to accept is that social and economic aims cannot be secured without effort and without sacrifice. If they could be got without effort and sacrifice, they would not be worth having. I know the Labour Party have the ambition of some day forming a Government. That is a very creditable ambition.

(Interruptions.)

Would the Taoiseach take his lap dog out of the House?

As far as I am concerned, I have no wish to discourage the Labour Party from pursuing that ambition.

You might as well be talking to the wall.

Sometimes, I must say you behave as if the highest aspirations you sought were to remain as a sort of patch on the Fine Gael pants, hiding their nakedness.

(Interruptions.)

That might make the Fine Gael pants a bit more respectable but it would not be a very ambitious role for the Labour Party.

The Government are looking for two patches. They may have one.

I want to give them this advice. Unless they say they are prepared to face up to all the obligations of government, including the obligation of imposing taxation when taxation is required and imposing that taxation in a manner fair to all the people, then they will never realise their ambition. If they are to limit their social objectives to what can be financed out of income tax or increases in petrol and tobacco taxes, they will be setting themselves very modest targets indeed. I am not giving Fine Gael any advice. I know their whole case is based on pretence. They have never given any serious thought to these matters. They could not now say in precise language where the aim of their Party is to lead the country.

Dissolve the Dáil and put it to the the test.

I am putting it to the test now. I am putting it to the test in the Dáil. This is where policies are debated.

Dissolve the Dáil and put it to the test.

For what purpose?

To give the people the Government they want.

Here in this House is the place to debate policy. Why are you afraid of doing it?

The Taoiseach should be allowed to speak without interruption.

I challenge any member of the Fine Gael Party in this debate to put forward an alternative to the policy of the Government. They have not done so yet.

They were always dependent on crooks to keep them in.

The Deputy wore a blueshirt. He should know.

Order! The Taoiseach should be allowed to speak.

People do not like taxation; nobody is expected to like it but it is the duty of a Government—as I believe it is the duty of any Opposition Party who want to be regarded as responsible—to come forward with comprehensive proposals to balance their intended objectives and aims with the means of realising them and that means must include the taxation required. It is easy enough to pick out this or that tax and say: "I shall vote against it," but what do you substitute for it? Will one member of the Fine Gael Party in this debate say what they would do if the Finance Bill were defeated and they came into office as a Government? Would they replace the taxes in these proposals and, if so, with what other taxes? And if they would not substitute these proposals by other taxes, what would they cut out of the present Government services? Will one of them answer that question? I shall lay £1 million to 1d. that not one of them will say one word——

They would sell the aeroplanes.

There would not be enough hearses in Dublin to take away the bodies.

(Interruptions.)

I know there are people outside the Dáil, groups in the country, with particular vested interests in the taxation proposals of the Government who are urging Fine Gael to maintain this position and trying to help them to put the Government out of office. Deputy Cosgrave referred to this organisation called RGDATA which is trying to work up a political agitation against the proposals for a turnover tax. I can say that more than any other man in public life I helped to establish that organisation, to secure its acceptance by traders and to give it the status which it ultimately attained. They owe me nothing on that account, but I thought they would behave in a situation such as this like all the other retail trade organisations which are sending their representatives to the Minister for Finance and discussing with him in a reasonable and intelligent way the Government's proposals, trying to ensure through these discussions that the proposals will be made to operate effectively and smoothly.

If RGDATA now want to become a political organisation, that is their right but they must not complain if in future we treat them as a political organisation.

(Interruptions.)

Anybody who wants to get into a political conflict must be prepared to get out of it with a bloody nose.

And be intimidated by the political bosses.

Traders who mix up politics and business usually do not do much good at either.

It was all right when they were with you.

I have no complaint about their being against us and with you, except that they are exercising political blackmail on Independent Deputies in order to ensure the defeat of the Government. They are free to do that; that is their constitutional right; but it is our constitutional right to tell the public what they are doing and the political motives that inspire it. If they want to talk reasonably, constructively and sensibly about these matters, the Minister for Finance is ready to meet them. Why do they not come to him? Why do they not utilise, as other organisations do, their powers of persuasion and any arguments they can produce instead of these parades and agitations and blackmailing tactics in which they are engaging?

It was all right to encourage the farmers to march in Dublin some years ago, led by Fianna Fáil Deputies.

Taxation must be an integral part of any system of government and if the taxation proposals which the Government have produced to support the comprehensive programme which we have enunciated are abandoned, the programme must also be abandoned. I have already told the House that we are now working upon the second phase of the Programme for Economic Expansion, that the first part of that work is now almost completed and that we hope to publish the results in the form of a Government Paper in the course of the next few weeks. In preparing this Programme, we shall set out the objectives for national effort as we have assessed them, for the rest of the present decade, and it is intended, as I have explained, to follow up this general outline of objectives by discussions with the major organisations representing economic interests, with a view to the preparation and publication before the end of the year of a more detailed programme for their achievement.

The first Programme for Economic Expansion has shown how effective a positive integrated statement of objectives can be. It has helped to propagate a climate of purpose and confidence in which all action becomes effective. It is the experience of the working of that first Programme which has convinced the Government that national economic progress and the social improvements which economic progress makes possible can best be promoted by positive planning. It has also convinced us of the important role of Government enterprise and State investment in the national economic advance. If considerations of penny-pinching, cheeseparing economy and the avoidance of expenditure because of the political problems of tax adjustments are to be the determinants of progress, then all progress will grind to a halt.

I should have thought there were some Deputies sitting opposite who had learned that lesson. All members of the Dáil who served with, or supported, the first Coalition Government should certainly have learned it, if they are ever capable of learning anything. They came into office with the intention of cutting down on all the developments which the previous Fianna Fáil Government had planned for the post-war period, slashing all around them indiscriminately. They came into office with the intention of closing down Shannon Airport. Indeed, some Deputies were trying to cause some public concern about this matter recently—about the future of Shannon Airport. Did they not realise that the only prominent man in Irish public life who ever advocated the closing down of Shannon Airport was the leader of Fine Gael, Deputy Dillon——

It is quite untrue.

I shall read what the Deputy said.

I advocated the establishment of entrepot trading there.

I shall read the extract from the Dáil Debates as reported in volume 105 of 18th April, 1947, of what Deputy Dillon said before he went into the first Coalition Government. He said.

In my opinion it would be much better to spend the most of our future appropriations on Collinstown. Whatever future this country may have as a centre of air navigation, it would be near Collinstown.

He went on:

Ireland as an intermediate stage upon the world traffic lines is a thing of the past. It will be with the greatest difficulty that we shall remain on the aerial map at all. As a point of juncture of world routes I think it highly unlikely that Ireland will be used at all ten years from now. I have no doubt that to say that at this stage will be regarded by some people as something like high treason: "Is it not an awful thing to say. He does not want Ireland to be on the map at all."

Then Deputy Dillon went on:

To tell the truth, I do not give a fiddle-de-dee.

And I urged trading should be established there.

(Interruptions.)

Deputy Dillon came into office with a policy of closing down Shannon Airport. The Coalition Government did, in fact, terminate the Irish transatlantic air service. They did, in fact, as we know, shut down a number of Government enterprises which were then coming into production. They stopped the mineral exploration programme which was in progress.

Quite untrue.

It is not untrue.

Absolutely untrue.

They curtailed the road development programme, which was a major part of our post-war employment plan. They advocated and, indeed, proceeded to implement their decision to abandon a number of extensions of State industrial activity which had been arranged. They urged the abandonment of the turf development programme. Deputy Dillon said that camel dung would be a better fuel.

We built the briquette factories.

(Interruptions.)

They set out to intimidate Irish industrial enterprise. A Minister of that Government talked about putting every Irish industrial leader in prison. Is that not true?

(Interruptions.)

Of course, it is true. They organised a deliberate, definite policy of recession and inflation.

Blatherskite.

(Interruptions.)

Cheap crossroads blatherskite!

They stopped many of the projects which were in progress and many more that had been planned to come into operation.

We drained the land and built houses. People were not buried under appalling tenements in our time.

(Interruptions.)

I do not know what there is about Deputy Dillon that reminds me of Cassius Clay, but it is not his boxing ability.

The dead in the Dublin tenements should remind the Taoiseach of his failure to build houses. Houses were built for the people in our time. It was the Taoiseach and his Government who stopped building them.

In 1956, the Dublin Corporation were forced to abandon the acquisition of sites for building.

That is tripe, and the Taoiseach knows it is tripe. There were too many houses and not enough people to go into them, and the Taoiseach knows that.

(Interruptions.)

The Coalition Government had no money to give for housing.

(Interruptions.)

I must insist on the Taoiseach—

(Interruptions.)

Will Deputies please allow me to speak? I must insist on the Taoiseach being allowed a hearing without interruption. Every Deputy has a right to speak and there will be plenty of time for every Deputy to offer his contribution.

The Taoiseach is entitled to speak but, if he challenges, he will be answered.

As to why the Dublin Corporation were prevented from stepping up their housing programme to the extent required, I will stand on the statement of the Chairman of the Housing Committee, Mr. Denis Larkin, a member of the Labour Party, and their candidate in the recent by-election, and that statement is the most biting condemnation of the Coalition Government ever expressed by any individual.

We built the houses. The Taoiseach let them fall down.

Of course, there are some members of the Fine Gael Party who realise now the nature of the blunders made by the Fine Gael Administration at that time. What they do not, perhaps, realise is that they are quite capable of making even greater blunders now than they were then, because they have certainly learned nothing in the interval. From the very beginning of our effort to build up the industrial life of this country, to develop our industrial arm, we met the bitter, undeviating, relentless opposition of the Fine Gael Party. By every device of intimidation, by organised blackguarding of the people who undertook to engage in industrial development, they tried to stop it. Of course, many of the things they opposed then they claim now to have invented or thought of first, but their whole history of that period from its initiation has been directed by the belief that the Irish people are not fit for self-government, are not capable of organising themselves to produce here a degree of development, a level of civilisation as high as exists anywhere else. Their lack of faith in the Irish people still persists, and their determination to stop the progress which the Fianna Fáil Government have initiated is inspired by their dislike of seeing the success which has attended our plans. They are hoping now they will be able to create sufficient public uncertainty as to the future, sufficient lack of progress in the implementation of the Government's programme in the Dáil to prevent it realising the benefits which, all the indications are, it is certain to produce.

For our part, we are going ahead now with the second Programme, which we expect to be as successful in stimulating national morale and introducing positive benefits for the country as was the first. We are going to draw up as reasonable an estimate as is possible of the maximum increase which is attainable in total national production, and then to work whole-heartedly for its fulfilment. Our second Programme will be more comprehensive than the first and we will set our targets somewhat higher, but it will be founded on the same principles as the first Programme. Nothing will be possible in economic or social progress unless the Irish people are prepared to assist in it, to agree that the Government should on their behalf allocate from the growing pool of national resources through taxation whatever finances are needed to sustain it. A plan alone is not enough. It must be backed by courage and determination and pursued consistently. It must particularly be financed, and financed from our own resources.

Now, a sound Programme must be comprehensive. Reference was made here to salaries, wages and incomes generally. The Government's aim in regard to wages, salaries and incomes generally is, I think, becoming better understood. I hope it will be even clearer to everybody very soon beyond the possibility of further misrepresentation. It is not designed to produce a wages standstill, as Deputy Dillon thought fit to allege. On the contrary, our purpose is to make sure that wages will periodically and generally be increased in line with national production by a process which will minimise industrial strife and at the same time, make sure that the wage and salary earners participate in improving national conditions in a way and to an extent which will represent real gains to them, a real enhancement of the buying power of their earnings without the danger of rising prices negativing the increase or unemployment resulting from depressed exports or lower home market sales.

We think that from time to time responsible people representing trade unions and representing employers should sit round a table to review the national circumstances and to measure the improvements in national production as a preliminary to the negotiation of national agreements for wage and salary adjustments and publish their conclusions for the guidance of those undertaking these negotiations. We think that the conclusions reached in such reviews should be made generally applicable by their voluntary acceptance and should determine the outcome of more detailed agreements to be negotiated at trade level as well as guiding the recommendations of the Labour Court and of all arbitration operations. We do not mind very much the form of the consultative machinery to be set up, so long as it is effective in ensuring the application of the principle that adjustments of wages and salaries should be related to national circumstances and so related to the national circumstances as to make feasible increases which will not have adverse consequences on prices or employment.

We believe that this is something that can be judged by reasonable men in a spirit of concern for the overall interests of the community and in a desire to promote the maximum rate of economic growth, not by the haphazard and unregulated methods of the past which could lead us into a period of not merely industrial conflict but economic depression which, if it once began, it might not be within our power either to control or to stop.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions issued recently a statement which did very much to clear the air. It expressed their desire to see set up a National Economic Council and it stated certain principles which, as I have informed them, are in concurrence with the Government's views. So far as the Irish Congress of Trade Unions are concerned, therefore, there seems no reason why they should not be able to work with the Government to achieve the objectives stated in their document, the objectives of realising and maintaining full employment at adequate wages, operating on the basis of freely negotiated agreements designed, where possible, so to distribute the benefit of greater national resources available for wage increases as to afford proportionately greater gains to the more lowly-paid workers.

As has been announced, I have communicated the Government's proposals in this regard to the Federated Union of Employers and the other employers' organisations co-operating with them, and to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. I understand that it will be next month before the discussions on the Government's proposals which we have invited may be possible. It will be understood that until they have taken place, the Government must exercise their weight and influence to prevent any disruption of the situation which would prejudice the chances of these discussions being fruitful. The Government have no illusions about the difficulty of bringing into being a system for periodic upward adjustment of wages and salaries on a free and voluntary basis which will prove workable and generally acceptable. I believe it is our duty to try to do it and that it will be of enormous benefit to the wage earners, if we can succeed. Indeed, some such system is essential to the successful operation of any plan for economic expansion. Those who, like the Government, believe in planning for progress must wish for the success of our efforts.

If the Government are defeated upon the Finance Bill, there will be a general election forthwith. I confess that I like elections. I like the personal challenge which they present. I like the excitement. I like even the uncertainty. When Opposition Parties start calling for an election, every personal feeling of mine prompts me to accommodate them but I have given the Dáil and I have given the country an undertaking that I will not ask for a dissolution, unless the Government are defeated in the Dáil. I have said that the Government's plans, which include the publication and the launching of the second development programme, are based on the assumption that the present Dáil will last its full normal term. That undertaking which I gave on my re-election as Taoiseach after the election in 1961 was, indeed, welcomed by many members of the Fine Gael Party who saw in the result of that election the possibility of some justification for the arguments which we had used in the constitution plebiscite, some support for the belief that there was danger in our system of elections which would tend to produce instability in Government. While I believe that these arguments were sound, it is my intention to ensure so long as I am Taoiseach, that the country will be spared the danger of that instability and the adverse economic consequences that could arise from it.

Now look at Tony smiling.

I said also that the Government's programme would not be modified or weakened in any way to avoid the risk of a Dáil defeat. I said that we would proceed with our programme in all its aspects in exactly the same way as if the 1961 election had given us an overall Dáil majority.

Whatever criticism the Opposition may offer of Government policy, they cannot say it is a time-serving one. They cannot allege that we are avoiding doing anything which we think it is right to do in order to escape creating political difficulties for ourselves. We see the nation's economic and social progress as necessitating higher outlay by the Government on both current and capital accounts. We have proposed, and have backed our proposals with taxation arrangements which make them possible, a comprehensive plan of development. We might, we know, have brought an easement of political criticism by avoiding these things, by sitting back and doing nothing. We were not prepared to pay the price of a sacrifice of the national interest for the purpose of securing that avoidance of political risk or political criticism.

Unless the Government are defeated in the Dáil, there will not be a general election until the autumn of 1966. If we are defeated and we go to the people, it will be with this proposition, that there is no way that we can devise by which national progress can be got on the cheap. There is no country in the world which is prepared to dole out charity to us, even if we would wish to take it. There is no source by which development can be financed except the wealth we create by our own productive efforts. If our people want to stop progress in order to avoid meeting the cost of it, if they want to do without better services in education, health, housing or social welfare, and so on, rather than pay for them, then they cannot be denied that right. I do not believe they want that policy. I believe that they will reject any Party that advocates it. That is why Fine Gael, who want that policy, who believe in this cheeseparing type of economy, who want to stop progress because they have no confidence in the Irish people, will not spell out their real intentions but try to cover them up with the ambiguities which we have witnessed in the course of this debate.

When the issue is put to the people, it will be our concern to see that these ambiguities and these evasions will not be permitted. We will smoke out into the open the real intentions of Fine Gael and reveal them to the people in all their unattractive nakedness.

We have just listened to a very petulant, worried, blustering and frightened man. We have listened to the type of man well known to certain sections of our people who makes sure that somebody is holding his arms when he says: "I love it; let me at him." He talks about a general election but he is making sure, in so far as he can, that the people will not be allowed to pass judgment on himself, his Party or his policy.

What is holding him back? He says, a statement which he made here when he was elected Taoiseach. At that time, he had not come to the House with new taxation proposals that had never before been put to the people. At that time, the country was still ringing with Fianna Fáil speeches guaranteeing to the people that they recognised that the level of taxation was already too high. There was no suggestion at the last election, or following it, that a new form of taxation applying to the entire retail trade would become part and parcel of the taxation armoury of Fianna Fáil. That is what we have to consider in this debate.

I should like to say that whether this turnover tax is good or bad, it is clear, and demonstrably clear, that the people are against it. Who are the Irish people? Are they the man who has just sat down and the people who clapped him? Are they the lords and masters of the country? Do they think they can think for the people? Do they arrogate to themselves the right to say: "We will consult our hearts and decide what is right for the country"? Are the people outside entitled to no say in the manner in which their country should be governed? If that is the Fianna Fáil, or the Taoiseach's definition of democracy, I should like to know where the country is going.

The Taoiseach made a speech, reported in the papers on 13th June, in which he referred to political demagoguery. I should like to know what he means by that term. Certainly, his speech here today seemed to me to be a practical demonstration of political demagoguery. It was not a practical demonstration of political democracy. The political democracy that is talked about from time to time by all political Parties is supposed to indicate that any major decision affecting the people and the country, should not be made without clear evidence that it is backed and supported by the people.

This tax is opposed by the people from every part of the country, north, south, east and west, by every means available to them. The workers, traders, shopkeepers, farmers, business people big and small, organised and unorganised, have indicated that they are against this manner of raising money, not to mention the vote of the people in the largest constituency in the country, in a free election. The kind of speech we have just heard from the Taoiseach was presented to the people as the Government's case, and the people in that constituency, in a surprisingly high vote for a by-election, decided emphatically, by a two to one majority, that they did not want this tax, that they did not want this policy, that they did not want that Party and that they did not want the Government who suggested that course.

In those circumstances, I should like to ask where we are going in this country. The Taoiseach says that if the Second Reading of the Finance Bill is defeated, there will be a general election. Thanks for nothing. Of course, there will be a general election, because it would demonstrate that even in this House, where vested interests dictate playing for safety, he would have ceased to have the confidence of the Dáil itself. Of course there would be a general election. If it transpires in this debate that one Deputy will maintain that Government in office and, by a majority of one, the expressed views of our people, big and small, rich and poor, the workers, business people, farmers and shopkeepers up and down the country, are to be set at nought, will that be a practical demonstration of democracy?

That man will be a national hero.

Or will it demonstrate that little men in big jobs are cowering down for fear——

Surely democracy means that the minority must have their say.

Democracy should mean in practice——

That the minority have their say.

—— that a free and proud people are entitled freely and proudly to decide for themselves the kind of policy they would like to see in operation, and not that a group of men with vested interests, concerned with their own positions and their own future, should decide that what they say the people will have to take.

The Deputy should know a good deal about that.

I do not know when we will finish the political education of Fianna Fáil. It has taken many years for them to recognise our established institutions. For many years, they remained outside this House and tried to wipe it away, because through this House the people were able democratically to decide their future and what they wanted. Now, having got into office, it is, apparently, their concern so far as possible to prevent democracy from operating.

The Taoiseach has said that if the Finance Bill is defeated there will be a general election. I believe it will be defeated. I believe that ultimately it will be borne in on certain people that you cannot play ducks and drakes with the country and with the feelings of the people. I believe there will be a general election. I hope it comes, and comes quickly.

Hear, hear.

I hope the people are enabled to decide for themselves the way in which they would like the country to be governed, and the policy they would like to see in operation, instead of having programmes waved around the place, and instead of action, talk, instead of hard work, bluster, instead of talk from the Taoiseach about social justice, better health services and things of that kind.

Where are they? A Select Committee of the House is sitting, composed of members of my side of the House and of the Labour Party, trying to work out for the Fianna Fáil Minister for Health a health policy, while we have the lowest quality health services of any country in Western Europe. The Taoiseach talks about another £10 million or £11 million being necessary in the interests of social justice, and says that we are extending our health services. Those health services will be extended, I am certain, only if the Fianna Fáil Government go out of office.

The Taoiseach was prepared to say this morning that the Fine Gael Party lack economic and social objectives. It is not now, and it was not last week, or last month, or last year, that we made our policy clear in regard to health services and matters of that kind. They are crystal-clear and are demonstrably right.

What are they?

To provide a comprehensive health insurance scheme. Of course it will come, and possibly it will come eventually with the support and approval of Fianna Fáil, but it is crystal-clear that we do not put it forward on the basis of: "Look, suffer on, and keep quiet; some day you will see things improving."

They improved since the Deputy's day.

If Deputy Leneghan is not careful, I shall tell stories out of school.

I will tell the stories. I have them in my pocket.

Would that be a night school?

The speech we heard this morning from the Taoiseach was very similar to recent speeches he made. In the Budget debate, he made a speech in which he said that he believed the time had come when national policies should take a shift to the left. He did not go on to explain what he meant. I cannot remember whether the Tánaiste was sitting beside him at the time. If he was, I am sure the red, white and blue Tory who is the Tánaiste of this Government must have been slightly shocked.

He had no Christine Keeler like some of you fellows had.

I should like to point out to you, Sir, that since Deputy Leneghan has come into this House, he has done nothing but consistently lower our standards and I would suggest that in the interests of the decorum of this House, he be requested to keep quiet or leave the Chamber.

A sharp turn to the left may have been a convenient phrase used by the Taoiseach on 24th April, 1963, prior to the by-election in North-East Dublin when in some peculiar mental process of his own he contrived to hope that his candidate might be elected, realising that it would be impossible to contemplate that he would be elected on the first count but hoping he might be elected by the second preferences of the Labour candidate.

The people who supported the Labour Party in North-East Dublin and, I believe, elsewhere throughout the country did not take very seriously the statement that Fianna Fáil proposed to go to the left, whether sharply, quickly or slowly because they bore in mind that the Fianna Fáil Party appear to advocate in speech one course but in action to do something diametrically opposite. I have no doubt that they recollected that since 1957 when Fianna Fáil came back into office, there has been a consistent attack on the living standards of ordinary working people in this country.

We talk in this debate about the imposition of the turnover tax on food and essential articles of that kind. Let it not be forgotten that in 1957 this Government wiped out the subsidies on food, on bread and butter and thereby imposed a tax felt particularly by every worker's family throughout the State. That was a foolish policy at the time. Subsidies were apart from their social impact and social benefit, a definite aid towards production and towards development of our export trade but Fianna Fáil proceeded to abolish them. That was their second assault on the living standards of the workers. They had previously operated, perhaps, from the best of motives, a wages standstill policy and at the beginning of this year, a second attempt was made to bring about wages control. That was contained in the Government's White Paper advocating a pay pause and entitled Closing the Gap.

The reaction to that White Paper was instantaneous, violent and determined and, of course, faced with that reaction the Leader of the Government dropped it as if it were a hot potato and proceeded to go around saying this White Paper did not mean what it said.

He said nothing of the kind.

"When I say pay pause, I do not mean pay pause; I mean a pay increase."

He did not say "pay pause".

It is Fianna Fáil tradition that words do not mean what they say.

They do not mean what the Deputy says. The Deputy should not misrepresent the position.

As was to be expected, Fianna Fáil, when they found that politically this course was awkward, proceeded to run away from it.

There was no running away.

That is what they said. The pay pause did not mean what it appeared to say.

Of course, the Deputy is incapable of being fair.

That was the Taoiseach's statement when the reaction to the White Paper became violent, vehement and clear.

There was no running away.

There was running away, as you have run away from other difficulties.

There was not. Take the thing fairly and squarely.

I am taking it fairly and squarely and I am accusing the Government of having run away from their White Paper on wages and income.

They did not.

You ran away from office in 1957.

I accuse the Government of running away from that statement of policy because they found the immediate reaction to be dangerous politically. The damage had been done. There was, in effect, a debate on the White Paper in this House and, unfortunately, when that debate concluded, it became necessary, because the late respected Deputy Jack Belton died, to hold a by-election. In the course of that debate, the sales tax had been announced. When the Minister for Finance introduced his Budget and announced a turnover tax, did he think he was going to get away with it?

We did not run away from it.

Did he think he was going to get away with it.

Did we run away?

It was paraded even by the Irish Independent and the Evening Herald.

A good paper that called for 77 executions.

Fianna Fáil executed a few of them. They let them go on hunger strike, if the Deputy wants to be reminded, and that is not so many moons ago.

I could take you to the glasshouses and show you some of the things that existed under Fianna Fáil.

Deputy Coughlan should allow Deputy O'Higgins to proceed.

I want to try to teach this gallant behind me a little bit of protocol and procedure.

Not while Deputy O'Higgins is speaking.

I can appreciate Deputy Coughlan's remarks. I want to deal with the Budget Statement. I believe that when the Minister for Finance introduced his Budget here and made his Budget speech, he thought he was being very clever. The Government congratulated themselves that this was a cute Budget; it did not appear to do much. The turnover tax of 6d. in the £ did not matter. They were taxing nothing, as they said. No tax was going on anything. As I said, even the Evening Herald of that day had little photographs of whiskey, stout, cars, and so on, and the caption “No increase in Tax.” Everything was lovely until people started to think and when people start to think about Fianna Fáil, they proceed to move against them. The people began to think and to see——

And to organise.

——that behind the verbiage of the Budget Statement was a new assault on the ordinary small people, on the workers and the workers' wives who shopped not for luxury articles but groceries, food, butter, bread and all the things for the family. Every small shopkeeper struggling to maintain an existence as the tide of emigration proceeds to withdraw from the west to the east, the small shopkeeper in the decaying villages and towns in the country, having examined this Budget, began to see the real threat to his existence. Then of course we had some ministerial tacking. Fianna Fáil were out in full sail and suddenly a storm blew up and they tried desperately to tack. A statement was made immediately by the Minister for Justice trying to assure the ordinary workers about to vote in Dublin North-East that there was no taxation on anything and not to worry. Then a statement was made by the Minister for Finance to the retailers: "You can pass on the tax."

And to everyone.

Indeed, there were two voices. The tacking was going on. There were assurances given: "It will not be as bad as you think; let us put it on and you will see." I have no doubt that if with dignity and decorum they could have withdrawn the tax proposed at that time, they would have withdrawn it.

That is what Fine Gael would do.

It was contained in the Budget Statement and they had to go through with it. What is the result? Never before in this House was there a Budget Statement which so obviously had not been thought out because when the Budget debate was over, we said to the Government: "Now, let us see the Finance Bill." Of course that was a different matter. They had not got a Finance Bill. One week after another passed until some five or six weeks had passed after the Budget debate had been concluded and then we eventually got the Finance Bill. I have no doubt that all that time the Government were busily engaged trying to see in what way they could get away from their turnover tax.

That is the Fine Gael attitude.

In the by-election, Fianna Fáil hoped the people would vote in blinkers but the Irish people do not do that. They are growing up and see through the dodgings of Fianna Fáil. Why was the Finance Bill not circulated before the people voted in Dublin North-East?

And before the Budget.

I said "before the by-election". That was some weeks after the Budget. We know that the reason was that as long as the Finance Bill had not been circulated, the Minister for Justice was able to say one thing and the Minister for Finance another. It was hoped that people would go into the ballot boxes in blinkers and not be able to see precisely what was involved. That did not pay off. Eventually this Bill, time beginning to run out, had to be circulated and they had to put down in black and white what their proposals were. It is possible now for us to see them, to talk about them and eventually to vote on them.

We know every effort was made in this Bill to try to make this tax appear as reasonable as possible. There was to be an exemption given to small shopkeepers from registering but not from the tax. They could not do that. The pill is coated with as much sugar as possible but the harm is being done and the Minister and every member of Fianna Fáil are aware of it. They have grievously outraged the people, grievously outraged the conscience of the country by proposing and going ahead with something which is contrary to the expressed will of the people. I do not believe that that will avail the Government very much. I believe that democracy will have its say. I cannot see this Dáil, which has had a chequered but a fine history since 1922, which existed and functioned before Fianna Fáil came into it and which will exist and function long after Fianna Fáil have disappeared——

What a hope the Deputy has.

——being made the personal appendage of any group of frightened politicians and if on the vote next Tuesday, the Government get through by the vote of one Independent, two Independents or three Independents, or whatever it may be, or if they get through by tradition and convention in the voting, for how long do you think that will last? The people will wait quietly and patiently outside but inevitably there will be another day and another trial and eventually the Government will have to go.

This is a serious situation; it is a serious time and a serious juncture. Would it not be better for the Taoiseach—instead of acting like somebody trying to take off his coat and making sure that he is held back —for his Party and the country, if in a dignified and proper manner, he consulted the people on this tax.

There are thousands and thousands of little shopkeepers up and down the country, who I suppose do not count in the eyes of the Taoiseach or the Government, little people with a small weekly turnover, who are frightened and worried that they are going to be put out of business. I know a small village in my constituency where there are six shops, three of them with bar licences, three without them. All six are in the grocery trade. The three publicans have met and decided they will carry the 2½ per cent. tax with their bar trade. The other three cannot do that, and what will inevitably happen is that whatever local trade there is will gravitate towards the three mixed premises where the turnover tax will not go on to the grocery items. Inevitably, three little tumbledown shops that had at least given a small income to three families, will disappear. I am certain you can multiply that up and down the country.

Do not let us say this does not matter, that this is a Government decision. Do not let us arrogate to ourselves, as I fear Fianna Fáil are endeavouring to do, the right to decide for the people what should be done in a case like this. If the tax were a clear-cut one, if it were to prove beneficial and meritorious in the long run, the Government would not be afraid of it, but in this case would it not be far better to let the people so decide? It would be the sound thing, the healthier thing for the country, particularly with the new problems arising in Europe and affecting this country, with the Common Market negotiations at an end, to have a new Dáil and a new Government. I believe we will have it sooner or later, and let the Deputy who runs away for safety from this debate not forget there will be a raging torrent outside that will sweep him and his likes away with it.

I had the Black and Tan boys in my county before.

I rise to speak on this Bill having taken the trouble to interview the people not only in my constituency but in the outlying areas as well. I am convinced from my investigation that the Minister's attitude when introducing this Budget was a very cowardly one. He was afraid to say straight out: "I am putting a tax on the bread, the butter, the sugar you eat to ensure survival." He was afraid to say to the many workers in his Department who get a miserable £6 or £6 10s. a week that their cost of living would rise by 2½ per cent. When I look around me here, I find only one member of the Fianna Fáil Party, the Minister himself, in those benches. It convinces me that they are afraid to face the facts either in this House or when they go back to their constituents. There is every reason why they should be so fearful.

I listened to Deputy Corry's story about being in a publichouse in Midleton last week. He said there were 60 people there and when he asked them if they were prepared to make this sacrifice of 6d. in the £ to ensure the improvement of their land, not one of them put up his hand to say he was not. Deputy Corry forgot to tell us who the 60 people were, whether it was he who rounded them into the public house, or how far had the entertainment gone—to what depth of their bloodstream had the whiskey he had poured into them gone. That is why no hand went up to tell Deputy Corry that his Minister for Finance had made a mistake and that his Party were for the highroad.

The effect of the Minister's action is chaos and confusion in the retail trade. I heard the Taoiseach a few moments ago denounce a particular branch of the retail trade because they did not go to the Minister for Finance to discuss their case. These people have been making their case: they went to the Revenue Commissioners to make the best case possible. I despise the Taoiseach's action in waving this threat over a body of hardworking men. I can tell him that the more threats he issues the more we will come back at him with counter-threats. We are not one bit afraid of the Taoiseach. He should know that after the Dublin by-election. Deputy Corry said he would think more of the votes of mental hospital patients in Cork than of the Dublin electors.

A good judge.

I say that if you had a by-election in every constituency in Ireland today the same trend would be there. I am prepared to wager a fair sum the result would be the same, if not worse, for Fianna Fáil. There is little doubt there will be chaos in the retail trade where you have so many people trying to make a living in huckster shops in side streets on a four per cent profit on negligible turnover. They are told in this Bill: "Go find the money; I must have it, and it is your business to find it." This is the working man's Minister, this man who will tax the small shopkeeper out of existence to the advantage of the millionaires who come in from England to set up their multiple stores. It is the death-knell of the family shopkeeper. How is he to collect 2½ per cent on Comic Cuts or Beano? It is all very well to say the sweet manufacturers, the chocolate manufacturers, will cut down their prices so as to obviate the necessity to collect this turnover tax. Are we now to have deputations from the wine, beer and spirit trade to the brewers and distillers to have the potency of their products reduced still further?

Members of local authorities and of health authorities in particular know the widespread fear of increased rates because of the prospective rise in the price of foodstuffs. We are also going to be faced with increased rates because increases in wages will have to be given by local authorities to meet the increase in the cost of living.

This Budget was introduced without any sense of foresight as to the results. We are told that agricultural produce will not come under the 2½ per cent tax when sold direct from the farmer. Does the Minister realise that in the city from which I come, and I am sure this applies, to every other town in Ireland, we hold markets two or three times a week? The farmers and their wives come into these markets and sell their produce from their carts in the streets. The small shopkeepers come to these markets, buy the stuff and resell it. They have to put the 2½ per cent to that. The woman who buys it in the markets does not have to pay that tax and will it not be the natural thing for all these women to flood the market and buy all their needs there? That is where the small shopkeeper is being axed again by the Minister.

The Minister tells us that the retailers can opt if they are under a certain figure each week. The Revenue Commissioners will accept certified returns from people who have £500 a week and over. What about the small shopkeepers who pay on sheets, to use the Revenue Commissioners' language? The person who pays on sheets has not the monthly return which is recognised by the Revenue Commissioners. He goes to the wholesaler and pays down the 2½ per cent. Some of those goods are perishable and may have to be thrown out. How is that person going to claim back from the Revenue Commissioners the 2½ per cent that he has already paid? The Minister has not a clue.

The Minister says that monthly returns will be furnished by the shopkeepers. I have some experience of the workings of the Revenue Commissioners and I want to ask the Minister in what way are they going to check on the shopkeepers. Are the inspectors going to come in, as they have done on many occasions in the past, and raid a shop? Not alone have they done that but they have torn up the floor-boards of shops in an effort to find out if any evasions were going on. Will the Minister give the same power to the Revenue Commissioners under this Bill that he has given them on other occasions? Are the private affairs of every man's business to be exposed to the Revenue Commissioners and are these details to be discussed in their offices and discussed outside them?

Is it to happen, as has happened, that figures in the offices of the Revenue Commissioners are to be made available to the prospective purchasers of businesses? I know a prospective purchaser of a business who went into the office of the Revenue Commissioners and asked what was the turnover of that business and it was given to him.

Will the Deputy give me information of that?

If it is true, there will be somebody sacked over it.

I do not want to have anybody sacked.

No, but the Deputy wants to make the statement.

I make the statement and it is true. It has happened in my own business, in the betting business. When a man is selling a business, a prospective purchaser can go to the Revenue Commissioners and ask what amount of tax was paid by that business and it will be given to him. Will tactics similar to the taking up of floorboards be employed in the case of the unfortunate retail traders? Will the inspectors have the authority to open a man's cash register and tell him that he has taken so much money that day? Will they have the power to search a man's stock, to spend half a day in his premises and waste his time? That is what they do in a betting office. They come in, spend half the day and waste your time and you have to give over to them the space that you want for your own business. Is this to operate with the retail trade? The Minister has not a clue.

I have a young family and they are expensive enough at times. What is the Minister going to do about the cost of schoolbooks? Has it occurred to him that every Longman's Latin grammar will have this 2½ per cent put on to it? The cost of primary and secondary education has gone high enough without another 2½ per cent being put on to schoolbooks. It is not my business to tell the Minister where he will get money—that is his business and the business of his officials—but I feel that the introduction of this tax is only the jumping-off ground. I have seen it happen in my business as a bookmaker when they started off with the 2½ per cent tax and the following November it was increased to 12½ per cent.

We already have a tax on betting that the betting public cannot afford to pay. Representations to that effect have been made by the responsible bodies who run the bloodstock industry in this country. They are giving good employment, attracting tourists and developing a first-class export market in both bloodstock and greyhounds. The Minister has slapped on a 2½ per cent tax and, as Deputy Cosgrave pointed out earlier today, it can ill-afford to carry it.

Let me point out to the Minister one significant fact. If he had been well-advised and if he had taken the time to consider how things are operated in other countries, he would look around and, instead of putting a tax on the purchases of poor people and increasing the cost of living, and increasing the demand for wages which will follow, find that there are certain articles of luxury imported into this country. It is not my business to tell him this but, as he has gone so far, I will remind him of what happens.

We are the only country in Europe to my knowledge that allows in beer and spirits without carrying a duty or tax. Our beers are exported to other countries. In France, they carry a 40 per cent import duty. In Germany, it is 27.2 per cent; in Italy, it is 39 per cent. In Switzerland, it is 4/- to the gallon, which is a fair percentage. In Belgium, it is approximately 40 per cent and in the Netherlands it is 40 per cent. Here are we in Ireland allowing in foreign beers and spirits without a farthing tax and allowing them to compete against the products we can manufacture here in the country creating direct and indirect employment as a result.

Yet, the Minister blindly turned his back to that fact. It is not my business. I am not the Minister for Finance. Neither are the Labour Party in Government. But, holy heavens, a Department threatened with intelligence would have seen the revenue derived from that source but not one step has been taken to secure it. We will tax the unfortunate widow and the unfortunate orphan. We will make school fees dearer. We will make bread and butter dearer. We will make the boots and stockings dearer. We will increase all those prices but we will allow German, French and Swiss lager and Scotch whisky and French burgundy to come in here without import tax: they pay their excise duty.

I am wondering whether this Budget has been the act of sane people. I am wondering if these people have been bereft of intelligence. The people of Ireland are thinking likewise and they have proved it and they will do so again tomorrow or the day after if they are asked to and get the opportunity. We in the Labour Party welcome many aspects of this Budget. We want to increase social services. We know money must be found but let us find it from the people who can give it. Let the Mercedes car people and the mink coat people give it to us but not the unfortunate person living on £6 a week and trying to rear a family. Why make them pay the same as the man with the Mercedes car?

Fianna Fáil say they are the poor man's Party and the working man's Party. Such hypocrisy I never listened to as I heard from the Taoiseach today. You would imagine we were living in Tír na nÓg. You would imagine everything in the garden was rosy. Let the Taoiseach talk to the man in the street and to the wife trying to keep a family and they will tell him what they think of this turnover tax. They are the people who will give him his answer. There is no point in these dreams and romanticisms which come when they suit us. Let us not insult our brains and our intelligence by trying to make believe that we are all right, that the country is grand, that everything is being done and that everyone is working.

The Minister introduced many Budgets in his time. I am not here so very long but I want to tell him this. It is a piece of advice from a fellow who knows. The Minister has put a nail in the coffin and he has sounded the death-knell of the small shopkeeper. For that reason, and that reason only, he will surely pay the cost the day he lets the people of Ireland decide whether his action was right or wrong.

I am a pretty good while coming to this House now and a more unpopular Budget, principally due to the turnover tax, has not been introduced in my time or, I think, even before that. I cannot understand how the Minister for Finance arrived at this idea of a purchase tax. Some Deputies blame officials in the Department of Finance or in the Revenue Commissioners but the Minister introduced the tax in this House and he is responsible to the House for it.

Deputy Coughlan brought home to me two hypocrisies of the present Fianna Fáil Party. One is their claim that they are the republican Party. I could not help remembering that they were the Party who never proclaimed this country a Republic and that they lashed themselves into a frenzy when it was declared.

That scarcely arises on the Finance Bill.

They say they are the poor man's Party. Since I came here in 1943, and even before that, they have consistently scourged the poor man. They started off with the Economic War in 1933. The small farmer and the working man were practically pushed from this country. In 1947, they aimed at removing the food subsidies. They were promptly thrown out of office at the following General Election. When they came back in 1951 they took a slice off the food subsidies which amounted to increasing the tax on the poor. They were thrown out of office again in 1954 and when they came back in 1957 they completed the job. They took off every single penny of food subsidies, totalling about £13 million.

The inter-Party Government, despite all the abuse and deliberate lies told about them in propaganda, and so on, at elections, found £13 million to keep the poor person's and the working man's food cheap. We kept the price down—and I am proud of it. If we never did anything else but that, I am very proud of it.

Look back and see how the wheel has turned full circle. Let us remember the time when we were paying £13 million when food was much cheaper and when the £13 million had much more value and let us consider the price of food now. We have arrived at the other extreme. We are now taxing food so that a person will eat less and spend more. It is a silly proceeding.

I think the decent thing for the Government to do, seeing the storm of protest that has been raised against the turnover tax, particularly on food, is to withdraw the Finance Bill and also the turnover tax or, if they are determined to go ahead with it, they should get out at once and not wait until the vote in this House. They are trying to force through something that has aroused the indignation of everybody.

I could not agree more with any speaker than with what Deputy Coughlan said about foreign beers and spirits. He mentioned that it is not the business of any Deputy to say how money should be found but I should just like to go this far. He says that drink is coming in here untaxed in competition with our own breweries and distilleries. That is one source from which the Government could find some of their proposed £10 million they will get out of the turnover tax.

Many luxury goods are coming into this country and people wealthy enough to pay for luxury goods would not, I think, object to paying a little more tax as well. We have only to look across the water at England. There is one thing they have done which we could do. Since the war, they have put a purchase tax on luxury goods. If the Government wanted money here, as well as the question of drink mentioned by Deputy Coughlan, they could raise all the money they wanted by taxing luxury goods. We did the equivalent of that when the prosperity we brought about from 1954 to 1957 caused the people to spend a bit too wildly. The balance of trade was upset by the money we put into circulation. We had to do something to check it, so we put on the equivalent of a purchase tax on luxury goods. Fianna Fáil, then in opposition, backed it; but the strange thing is that the very moment they came into office in 1957, they removed it. It is quite clear what happened. A lot of people believe— so do I—that there was a sell-out in the election of 1957 that put votes and money in Fianna Fáil's way. I have no proof of it, of course, because those things are done behind closed doors.

The Government are compelling every shopkeeper to be a tax-collector. The Minister has told the shopkeepers to take this 2½ per cent off their turnover and collect it any way they like. It reminds me of the system that obtained under the old Roman law at the time of Our Lord when the governors of subjugated provinces sold the taxes to tax-collectors and let them squeeze blood money out of the unfortunate people. These tax-collectors went around like the land bailiffs in our grandfather's time and collected as much as they liked. What the Minister is saying is this: "I want 2½ per cent tax on turnover from you. You can charge ten per cent, if you like, to the customers."

The Minister says that competition will keep matters right, but it is significant there is no safeguard in the Bill. I know they will not, but suppose the shopkeepers got together tomorrow and said: "We will charge 2½ per cent to the customers for the Minister for Finance and charge another 2½ per cent for ourselves. We will make a good thing out of it." While it is unlikely to happen, it is a possibility that should not be lost sight of. The ordinary purchaser is not safeguarded from such an eventuality. I said previously on the Budget that the Government have no legal authority to compel shopkeepers to pay this 2½ per cent tax. They are turning them into tax-collectors, unpaid servants of the State. I believe the shopkeepers in my part of the country will band together and refuse to pay it. I believe that ultimately all the shopkeepers throughout the country will refuse to pay it.

Recently I was talking to a small shopkeeper, who I thought was doing a fairly thriving business. He is a married man with five children. He has a shop in a good position and he is a good businessman. He amazed me by telling me that after 15 years all he has saved is £500. Neither he nor his wife drinks or smokes. In the 15 years, he has not taken a holiday. His wife may have taken a few days by the seaside each year. He is a thrifty, careful and honest man. These are the "wealthy" people who are going to be fleeced by the Minister for Finance.

The small shopkeeper will be literally wiped out of business by this tax. Many of them do a casual business. I can see the shopkeeper in a good line of business, where people pay every week or every month, totting up the amounts in the books at the end of the week or month and adding 2½ per cent to the whole lot. But I am thinking of the other type of shopkeeper who does a floating trade, who sells sweets, cigarettes and ice cream to people who only call once a week or only once in their lives passing through. They will have to put on a heavy tax.

In every town, there are small shopkeepers who supply the wives of working people and wage earners with small commodities. Maybe it is only a loaf or two of bread, a half-lb. of tea, a couple of lbs. of sugar or two ounces of tobacco for the man of the house. The tax on these items, if they put it on, will be much more than 2½ per cent. In some cases, it will be five per cent or even ten per cent. When a woman comes in for a half lb. of tea or a couple of lbs. of sugar, how is the shopkeeper to calculate the tax? It will be impossible to calculate the tax on some of these small items. If the shopkeepers eventually decide to pay the tax, they will have to save themselves. The customer who will suffer is the wife of the small farmer, trying to rear a family and make a few pounds go far, or the wife of the working man in the town. These people will be blistered out of existence. The Government are taxing the very necessaries of life for them at a time when they can badly afford it.

One question I should like to ask is— although I am not making any suggestion—why rope in all the shopkeepers who do a retail trade? All of them buy their stuff in bulk from wholesalers or factories. If it is necessary to impose the tax at all, why not do it in the same way as drink, tobacco and petrol are taxed and impose the tax as near as possible to the source of production? That would have been the sensible way of doing it.

This is definitely one of the worst blows struck at the poor people since I came into this House. It means that many people, who up to now have not thought of emigrating, will be driven to the emigrant ship, along with the thousands who have had to go through lack of employment. The decent thing for the Government to do is to withdraw this tax or else, without waiting for a vote of the House, ask the people of the country what they think about it. This is too big a step for any one man or small group to take, in view of the protests against it. The people should have an opportunity of voting on it before it goes any further.

Debate adjourned.
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