Vol. 241 No. 2
I move:—
That it is expedient that legislation be enacted to give statutory effect to certain Financial Resolutions passed on the 7th day of May, 1969, by Dáil Éireann in Committee on Finance and to make provision for other matters relating to or connected with the said Financial Resolutions.
Perhaps, the Minister could tell us, for the benefit of the new Deputies particularly, what this is all about?
I will explain it when I come to the Bill. This is a financial resolution before the Bill.
Was this the one which was being debated when the Dáil was dissolved?
No. This is an entirely new measure.
This is what I had to do in June, 1954. I will explain what the Minister for Finance has not explained.
I was about to explain it. I did not mean any disrespect to the House. I intended to explain it when we came to the Bill proper. This is a Financial Resolution prior to the Bill. The purpose of the Financial Resolution and the Bill is to confirm all the various taxes we have been collecting since the Dáil dissolved. With the dissolution of the Dáil the Financial Resolutions which were carried on the authority to collect all the tax increases went by the board. We must bring in this piece of legislation in order to confirm them.
On this motion all the tax proposals contained in the Minister's last Budget on 7th May can be discussed in the Bill now?
Yes, but also later on we will be introducing all the resolutions again. It is perfectly in order to discuss everything in this Bill.
There would be free licence on Resolution No. 13 to criticise the Budget tax proposals?
Yes.
Is the Deputy asking about discussion on the resolutions?
There were 13 Financial Resolutions. As I understand the position, this measure is purely for the purpose of regularising the position between the date of the dissolution and today. The general Budget discussion and the Financial Resolutions will come up for discussion under the ordinary Financial Resolution No. 13. We accept that there must be some orderliness in the public finance and that this resolution, on which the Bill will be founded, is necessary. Frankly, it appears to me now, as it appeared to me 15 years ago, that there is a serious difficulty here. Since the dissolution of the Dáil the Minister for Finance has been collecting taxes for which he had no statutory authority at all. When I was faced with that position I was not the Minister for Finance who had been doing it. I came in and took over from another Minister who had been collecting taxes without statutory authority.
Deputy Haughey, who was Minister for Finance at the dissolution of the Dáil, and who is Minister for Finance today, is in the position of having collected taxes under the Financial Resolutions at the increased rates which were imposed by the Budget, without statutory authority to do so. The fact that that is so is proved by the necessity to come to this House with the financial resolution in the form of Resolution No. 12 and with the Bill that is set out at No. 6 on the Order Paper. To put it mildly, that seems to be a most unsatisfactory state of affairs. The Minister for Finance should have foreseen this possibility before the dissolution of the House and have taken regard of it. He could have put it to the House then. He failed to reply to the Budget debate. The Taoiseach dissolved the Dáil that night without taking proper cognisance of the lacuna that was there.
I would agree with Deputy Sweetman on this. I believe legislation should be introduced prior to the dissolution of the Dáil.
It would not have been necessary had the Dáil not been dissolved.
We do not have such a measure introduced often. It is not often that the debate on the Financial Resolutions is interrupted by a general election. We have no objection to this motion. We supported all tax resolutions. I do not remember what the attitude of the House in general was but the Labour Party supported the tax resolutions to provide for the benefits contained in the Budget. Consequently we have no objection to this. It was a device practised by Deputy Sweetman 15 years ago but in view of what Deputy Sweetman has said, perhaps, we should have made provision for these matters before there was a dissolution of the Dáil.
There are numerous precedents for this procedure. Be that as it may, this is the first time I have come up against this situation. When we come to the Finance Bill I propose to make provision in it so that this sort of situation will not arise again. In the future we will make better provision for this eventuality.
What happens if someone takes an action against the Minister for Finance in respect of the excess duty on petrol collected without statutory authority?
I do not agree that the tax has been collected without statutory authority. It is arguable under different headings.
Why bring in this Bill?
I am bringing in this Bill from what the lawyers call exabundante cautela.
Translate, please.
From an excess of caution, or an abundance of caution.
What legal effect is there in the House passing the Financial Resolutions in respect of petrol, and wholesale tax? Why do we do this?
That is a necessary preliminary to the Finance Bill. There must be Financial Resolutions preliminary to a taxing statute.
The resolutions last for 90 days.
This Bill is to confirm what we have done since the Dáil was dissolved.
The Minister is not really covered for the taxes collected since the House was dissolved?
The Minister will not admit it, but he is not covered.
We will not bring it to the Supreme Court.
We will put the matter beyond any doubt now by passing this Bill.
If a Deputy has spoken already on the Budget, may he speak again on this Bill?
Yes.
We might arrive at some agreement about this. A number of things will come before the House now. It would facilitate all of us if any general discussion on the Budget could take place on the Second Reading of the Finance Bill. That will be next week. Perhaps, we could let all these technical measures go through because they are very urgent. Deputies would have full liberty to discuss any matters they like on the Second Stage of the Finance Bill. Would that be agreeable to everybody?
How urgent are the technical measures?
They are quite urgent. I would like to remove any doubts that may be involved in the present position.
In the ordinary way a Second Reading debate on the Finance Bill is not as wide as the debate on a general Budget resolution. Before we would agree to that proposal we would want it made quite clear by the Ceann Comhairle that, for this purpose, the debate on the Second Stage of the Finance Bill would have the same bounds only as the bounds on a debate on a general resolution. I do not want to be caught in a position which does not allow a full debate.
The Chair has no objection.
Can we have a full, open debate on the Second Stage of the Finance Bill?
Can we have a debate like we would have on the general resolution of the Budget?
Agreed.
That is better.
