There are three further matters that I wish to speak on concerning the financial statement. I expect to conclude by 4.45 p.m. Those three matters are taxation on imported books; the financial needs of blind persons in the Republic; the housing needs and Government policy with particular reference to speculation.
I have received a number of representations in regard to taxation on imported books. I am sure many other Deputies have received similar representations. There is an anomaly in the current position. We submit to the Government that it is unfair in the case of many books that there should be an import duty on them. For example, author's copies that are presented free of charge to persons in this country are subject to tax. In our submission these at least could be exempt from the tax imposed on their arrival in this country. We submit that there should be no tax in the case of review copies sent here, especially when they are published in Britain.
The practice is growing of the free exchange of books of a technical and academic nature. The tax on such books represents a heavy liability on universities, research institutions, learned societies. We submit that there should not be a tax in the case of the free exchange of printed literature.
It has been put to the Labour Party that it is ludicrous that when valuable literature, particularly where it has antiquarian interest, is purchased abroad from booksellers it should be subject to tax when it is brought into this country. We consider that it is wrong to impose tax in such circumstances.
We would ask the Minister to have a further review of this matter. The liability to tax in such cases as I have mentioned represents a heavy burden on students, research workers, teachers, universities and research organisations. For example, a constituent of mine, who is a sixth form teacher, told me that a continental friend had sent him three very small books, one of prose and two of poems, in French. In order to receive them he had to pay 22p in collection charges. The books in question are not normally sold in this country. They did not even have a price mark; they were merely, in the case of the poems, two poems in French. This is a rather antediluvian type of tax on knowledge. The law in this respect should be amended. Also, in regard to the decision of the Government to introduce a value-added tax, I submit that a zero rate of levy should be imposed on such literature as I have mentioned. This would remove the anomaly which exists at present. I would ask the Minister to comment on this matter.
Now I come to the second point— the need for more extensive and more effective budgetary relief for blind persons. Successive Governments have been all too complacent, all too smug and have been stingy in regard to the provision of financial and other help for blind persons to enable them to have a fuller and more effective life. The budget is an obvious means of making suitable provision. At least there is now a recognition of the position of blind persons in that an extra £100 personal allowance has been given to blind persons under the income tax code and there is another £100 concession for their wives. In my view that does not go far enough. The cost of living for a blind person is much higher than in the case of a person with eyesight and, indeed, in the case of persons suffering from other types of handicap. It is now generally accepted in Northern Ireland, in Britain and on the Continent, that a greater range of general benefits should be provided for blind persons over and above the handicap allowance. In this country there is a blind pension. Whoever devised that type of allowance did not show humanity or sensitivity. There should not be a pension for being blind. A blind person should get a handicap allowance. Further provision should be made having regard to the peculiar expenses incurred in the case of blind persons.
The public assume that a blind person is automatically in receipt of a blind pension. It may come as a surprise to people that there is a means test in relation to the blind pension. It is not granted automatically. I was shocked to find out that in the past three years 26 blind people have been disallowed the blind pension. The irony is that it has cost £12,000 to adjudicate the means test in relation to the blind pension. In the past three years we have spent approximately £30,000 to administer the means scheme with the result that 26 people have been disallowed. This is a ridiculous situation and we should do something to change it.
I do not think members of the public appreciate that blind people will receive the magnificent amount of £5.50 per week. I know blind people in my constituency who will have to live on 74p per day as from next August. The current level of pensions, particularly for blind people, is utterly inadequate. Blind people face special problems. Their expenditure on shoe leather is considerably more than that of other citizens; because of their disability they may brush against wet paint, they may sit on dirty seats, and in consequence their clothes must be cleaned frequently. Blind people may be obliged to have special electrical equipment installed in their houses and frequently the cost of repairs in their houses is more expensive. We should bear in mind the extra expenditure the blind must bear each week, not the least of which is the additional cost facing a blind housewife who, inevitably, has a restricted choice when she shops.
I submit that concessions other than the £100 tax concession should have been given to the blind people. The blind must pay for many services which other members of the community can do for themselves; they must pay for house repairs and for gardening costs. Frequently they are obliged to pay the cost of a reader service because this is not always borne by the voluntary organisations; they may need special typewriters, Braille writing machines and many such items. They may have to pay for a guide dog. These are some additional items of expenditure which the blind must pay although we know that their earnings are limited and their capacity to earn additional money is restricted.
I would point out to the Minister that most of the western European countries have introduced special allowances, free of means test, for blind people. For example, these allowances are available in Sweden, Denmark, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Australia and New Zealand, to name but a few countries. These allowances are given in addition to the income tax allowances. The Minister should remember that in many countries a blind person is exempt totally from income tax and this is a concession that should be granted here. In 1962 the British Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced income tax concessions for the blind; yet it took us until 1971 to do this.
We may claim to be especially sensitive to the care of the disadvantaged in our community. This is a Christian concept which we profess but when it comes to putting our hands into our pockets we tend to adopt a different attitude. The so-called concessions I have mentioned should be dealt with by the Minister. I do not think that it would cost a tremendous amount to give those additional helps.
For example, the net cost of increasing the blind pension to £7 maximum, with a corresponding increase in the other rates, would cost approximately £750,000 per year. This is not too expensive when one considers total budgetary expenditure. The Minister should consider the provision of free travel for blind people—it would not cost very much. Many able-bodied and active pensioners can travel around the country but how much more would it mean to a blind person to be able to travel on public transport where he would have valuable human contact. In addition, we should provide free radio and TV licences. We provided free radio and TV licences and I think the matter is now being reviewed. I am not sure of the present position but I hope that the blind may be provided with a combined licence and that they might also get free electricity.
We have been appallingly complacent with regard to housing. The Government or the community do not appear to have put a great deal of effort into this important matter. It is the old story of Fianna Fáil—doing a little and doing it far too late. Deputy FitzGerald made a pertinent comment on this matter in his article on the budget in The Irish Times of 25th April. When commenting on the public capital programme he said:
It seems fair to say that the proportion allocated to housing is now very low—only 16½ per cent as compared with 23 per cent six years ago. This relative erosion of the housing programme is a feature of our capital programme which is difficult to understand in the light of the growing backlog of housing in Dublin.
Deputy FitzGerald pinpointed the fact that while our budget has grown very considerably, like Alice in Wonderland, we are running fast but staying in the same place. In the urban areas the situation is growing more critical and I wish to comment on a number of factors with regard to the housing position. I do not propose to comment on rates reform, differential rent schemes or on tenant purchase schemes as I do not wish to delay the House unduly.
In this country we state adamantly in our various housing programmes that the family is the basis of society. We neglect fundamental areas of family life such as making reasonable provision for houses for all families in the community and putting houses within the normal reach of these families. For many families at present this is a rather pious aspiration, a piece of political theory, because there are many thousands of families who have no prospects of a home. There are at least 4,000 families in my constituency who have no prospect of a home until the mid-1970s at the earliest.
We cannot be unduly critical of the situation which we now see emerging in the Irish urban areas in particular, and more particularly in certain parts of Dublin, patterns of crime, delinquency, juvenile alcoholism and patterns of family desertion which I have found in my short experience of public life can be in many respects traceable to and can be and are derived from lack of adequate housing for the families involved. Where families are forced to live in less than adequate conditions for human beings inevitably the defects I have mentioned come to the surface. The appalling thing is that those who have houses, generally speaking, do not give a damn about those in most not. Very frequently those who have need of houses when they get a house are not very preoccupied about the remaining persons in the community who have no homes. In this respect our community conscience deserves to be severely criticised.
One must say without being unduly critical of the Government—Governments come and go, as political parties and politicians come and go— that in the Irish community in the Republic the existing situation is a glaring scandal. The never-ending rise in the cost of houses and in particular in the cost of developed sites is equally scandalous. I suggest very strongly to the Government and to the Minister for Health, who is present now, that the past policy of the Government of doing far too little far too late and of keeping serviced building land in relatively short supply and at relatively exorbitant prices has ensured that in the mid-1970s relatively artificial, inflated prices are being paid for building sites. The result is grossly exorbitant and scandalous profit for land speculators over the mid-sixties and now in the seventies.
It is illuminating to point out—we had a little of this last week—the number of Deputies who cash in on it. It is very interesting to go through the past occupations of a number of Deputies and see the number who, since their election, have become auctioneers, a very interesting indication of where the profits and the motives lie. There is money to be made out of property and nobody knows this better than many Members of the Dáil and they have made, and are making their money out of it. The exorbitant profits being made out of land at present and the exceptionally high mortgage rates being paid by struggling young couples and the profits being pocketed by private speculators constitute a scandal which must be thoroughly and repeatedly exposed. A house is not a luxury like a racing stable or a yacht or an expensive motor car; it is an elementary necessity of life for a wife and family and young children. It is extraordinary in our community, which professes to be overwhelmingly Christian, that we should tolerate such exploitation of human needs because that is what is happening in the current land situation particularly in the greater Dublin area. Pious political platitudes from various Government Ministers on this question will not remedy the position. Young couples, at a time when they can least afford it, are being financially crippled because of the growth of speculation in land prices and the exceptionally high rates of interest on mortgages. We used talk of the rack rents charged by British landlords but there are quite a few native Irish speculators in land at present who are getting far more profit from the rack rents they are charging for the land they are retaining.
The situation has become more critical because about 20,000 new marriages take place annually at present. This is a record figure for the past 100 years. This is all to the good for the future development of the country. But it means that about 40,000 persons begin family life and want houses. Many of them must find a house but the prospects are growing dimmer each day in the 1970s in the urban areas in respect of costs and repayments.
The Government's decision last year to increase interest rates on loans to local authorities to 9½ per cent meant that at that time many persons buying their own homes found they had to pay 10 per cent on their loans. Many of them could not meet the cost of these mortgages. There is no dearth of information available to the Government right on from the publication in 1964 of the first White Paper, Housing Progress and Prospects, to 1969 when we had another White Paper published by the Government, Housing in the Seventies, as it was then called. There was no shortage of statistics to forewarn the Government and indicate the crisis now facing us in many urban areas.
We could not allow a budget debate to pass without pointing out that much of the land speculation which is taking place in the urban areas and much of the profit accumulated by the speculators in those areas has produced a great deal of marital stress through gross overcrowding in housing. It has resulted in the psychiatric health of the community suffering because there is nothing worse than an overcrowded family in a sub-tenancy living on top of another overcrowded family. The effect on the health, the education and the development of young children can be quite dramatic. A great many of their deficiencies can be traced back to the lack of adequate housing.
I shall give an instance that has recently come to light from An Foras Forbartha of the escalation of land prices and the Government's failure to come to grips with it. In 1960, it has been authoritatively estimated in a study made by An Foras Forbartha, the cost of an acre of potential building land was £301 and an acre of developed land cost £1,000. In 1971 the same land cost £2,500 and £7,000 per acre respectively. One can safely say that the cost of developing the land did not increase from £800 to £4,500 per acre since 1960. Therefore, the profit is roughly £3,000. That is straight profit for developed land in urban areas. That is a rate of profit which must be almost unique in Western Europe.
In the early 1960s the price of land was relatively unimportant to the house price. At that time one had eight or ten houses to an acre and the cost of developed land was £1,100 per acre. At present the same number of houses must be squeezed into an acre of land costing about £7,000. Therefore, the cost of land per house is now very substantial and making the price of houses for many young people completely exorbitant.
This, I would strongly submit to An Tánaiste, has been an area of price inflation in which, with all the NIEC Reports and all the work of the Prices Commission, effective Government control could and should have been introduced a half decade ago. We have had comprehensive information available to us. Three years ago the NIEC, in Report No. 26, recommended to the Government that they should make an effort to assemble the facts about increased site values so as to identify what precisely was occurring in terms of land exploitation. Again nothing very much was done.
The magnitude of price increases can be measured on a simple basis. Retail prices have gone up by about three-fourths since 1950 but site values have been multiplied by eight over the same period. The lesson was strikingly obvious to anybody. The neglect of the Government and their failure to come to grips with land speculation, particularly in the Dublin area, is something which will not rebound to their credit in the years ahead. The situation is scandalous.
We in the Labour Party have raised this question time and again in this House. We raised the intrinsic inequity of the situation right through the 1960s and pointed out the moral injustice of allowing escalation in land values to take place. The Government permitted that escalation to take place, thus permitting a blatant exploitation of pressing community needs. This has been one of the greatest factors in the increased cost of housing in Dublin and other urban areas. Anybody looking for a site for a house will pay at least £1,000 for it and the person who bought that land perhaps in 1960 will make at least £700 or £800 clear profit.
The irony of it is that this is a tax-free profit. Not only have the Government allowed exploitation to take place but they have allowed it at the expense of taxpayers' money pumped into these particular sectors of land to develop them for the community. The speculator got the benefit of roads, of a water supply, of ESB cables, the whole infrastructure provided in the peripheral areas of our towns, and overnight capitalised on that investment in those areas of land. At the same time he gets special, privileged tax treatment. The situation would be beyond belief in any normal democracy. The tax treatment of capital gains made out of land transactions is a great social problem. It is true that since 1969 income tax is levied on profits arising from the sale of land but only in the case of persons engaged in the buying and selling of land as an actual business and how many people formally register them-buying and selling of land? Any auctioneer will tell you—friends of mine are auctioneers and they do not make any bones about telling me—what to do if you want to make money out of land. The current practice is, with entry to the EEC allegedly imminent, to buy up as much rural land surrounding the urban areas as possible. It can be bought relatively cheaply and one will cash in on this in the mid-1970s——