I should like to make a few comments on the budget and to congratulate the Minister on providing a very comprehensive financial statement in line with the Fianna Fáil manifesto and programme for the rebuilding of our economy. The Minister for Finance is to be congratulated on the improvements in payments to social welfare recipients and the removal of various anomalies in the means test by which people qualify for social welfare benefits.
The matter in the budget which has caused most public comment is the agricultural levy which will be used to pay for education, research and advisory services. I have been assured by the Minister that he is prepared to look at this matter as it affects the small farming community and I am satisfied from his assurances to me that no hardship will be caused by the imposition of this levy. I want to emphasise the position of the very small milk producer, the beef producer, the hill sheep farmer, the pig-fattening enterprises working on low profit margins, and the position of a dairy farmer struck by animal diseases. I know the Minister will give sympathetic consideration to people in these categories so that hardship will not be caused.
I do not accept the criticism of politicians for party advantage. The farmers' leaders are in a different category. Their organisations are funded from a levy system. I find it very difficult to understand how, on the one hand, they finance their own operations through a levy system and, on the other hand, criticise the Government for introducing a levy system to meet the cost of education and advisory services. The confrontation between the urban and rural dwellers, because of the propaganda about extracting more money from the farming community, is not in the best interests of the economy as a whole.
The position in regard to farming income is highlighted in the Farm Management Survey, 1977, in the October issue of the Farm and Food Research Bulletin by An Foras Talúntais. The figures in that survey show the farming community have not all that much money to give to the Exchequer. In the first category shown in that survey 30.9 per cent had a family farm income below £1,000 per farm; 35.9 per cent had a family farm income of between £1,000 and £3,000 per farm and 32.2 per cent had a family farm income of over £3,000. This means that two-thirds of the farming community had an income of less than £3,000 per family farm, including every person in the household as well as perhaps some additional employees. In addition the survey shows that the 1978 figure was 18 per cent higher than the 1977 figure.
It must be accepted that it is since 1972 only, following our membership of the EEC, that farmers have been making a reasonable income. Prior to that, there was a fair amount of hardship and drudgery in rural areas, eking out a living. In addition to that the farming community have had the constraint of the development which has taken place in farming in the past four or five years. At present the total loans outstanding to the farming community have reached the figure of £600 million. If we take the better-off, more aggressive farmers, the top 50,000, that would leave an average of £12,000 per farmer being borrowed, the repayments on which must be met. Those figures illustrate that the farming community have not got all that much money to put into the Exchequer. They illustrate also that the top one-third of the farming community are in a position to pay their fair share of tax. Perhaps I may be permitted to give one quotation from that Farm Management Survey 1977:
The results indicate, however, that improvements in 1977 were confined to a particular sector of the farm population, namely, the upper end of the income distribution. It would appear that those who were doing well in 1976 improved their position considerably in 1977 while those with the lowest incomes in 1976 just about managed to remain stationary in current money terms.
Therefore, there is a section of the farming community who can afford to pay tax and the farming leaders have stated that they are willing to do so. I submit to the farming leaders that farm incomes and profits subjected to tax, based on the accounts system, constitutes a fair system of taxation. I should like to have an unequivocal and straight-forward reply from the farming leaders to this question: is the system of taxing farming profits, based on accounts, a fair system? They have said they are willing to pay their fair share of tax and I submit that that is a fair system of assessing tax. It is not good enough and is not in the interests of the farming community not to face up to this problem, not to be seen by both urban and rural communities to be contributing the same amount of tax on the same amount of profit made.
Of course a farm taxation system must allow farmers to develop their enterprises, to expand output and their farming operations. If the farming leaders accepted the accounts system of taxation, were able to get assurances that there would be reasonable allowances given for expenses such as purchase of machinery, the building of production units necessary in modern farming and indeed on the reclamation of land where that is necessary—if those safeguards in regard to expenses and depreciation allowances were given— incentives could be built into an accounts system of taxation to develop and expand farming enterprises. It is my opinion that farmers with a valuation under £20 should be exempt from the accounts system of taxation if only because the administrative costs would not justify taxing people in that low income bracket. As the farm management survey pointed out, they are not making a great income in any case. On that matter I should like a little more honesty and a little less rhetoric. If people say they are prepared to pay their fair share of tax, they must be seen to be doing so. I submit that the accounts system is a fair one and I should like to have the views of the farming leaders on that matter.
Deputy Bermingham referred earlier to the removal of food subsidies. At present milk costs 11½ pence per pint to the consumer. When account is taken of the cost of producing that milk on the farm, the cost of delivering it to the processing unit, the cost of packaging and delivery, particularly in rural areas distances of perhaps up to 70 miles over bad roads may be involved, with the housewife still being able to get it at a cost of 11½ pence, it does not seem exorbitant. I know there are other beverages in pint bottles costing considerably more. I was in a hotel in this city recently when a gentleman joined me in the lift with one pint of milk on a tray. I asked him how much that pint of milk cost a guest and he replied 45 pence. Of course, he said, that takes into account the delivery and service cost to the bedroom of the gentleman in question. I should like Deputy Bermingham and some of the agencies to examine that anomaly of charging 45 pence for a pint of milk delivered to a hotel bedroom. I do not think a price of 11½ pence per pint is excessive when one bears in mind the situation obtaining around the country, particularly in rural areas where it must be delivered long distances.
The substantial improvements effected in this budget for the less well-off people, those people in the social welfare categories, are far more important in improving their position than the provision of a subsidy which would be availed of by every section of the community irrespective of their incomes. It has to be remembered that when food subsidies were introduced by the previous administration they said they were a temporary measure.
There is one other matter which I would like the Minister to look into at some stage, and that is the position of applicants for contributory pensions. As a public representative I know of quite a number of applicants for contributory pensions who have been disallowed because the majority of their contributions were paid prior to 1953. In some instances people have paid and stamped their cards for 20 or 25 years prior to 1953 and it is a hardship not to take those stamps into account. I would ask the Minister to look at this sector because there is some hardship caused there.
There is another anomaly in regard to social welfare recipients which I would like the Minister for Social Welfare to look into. That is the single women's allowance. In rural Ireland there are a number of single women in receipt of this allowance. They have not had an opportunity of getting married and they remain in the household with a brother who, in fact, gets married. In such a case the single woman is living in the house and doing a fair amount of the work in that household, but in relation to this allowance the social welfare or pension officer takes into account the board and lodgings available to the applicant and she ends up with an allowance of only £1 or £1.50 per week. I would ask the Minister to look into this matter because this situation is causing much hardship to the people concerned.
I am impressed with the comprehensiveness of this Budget Statement. It gives a fairer deal to each sector of the economy and certainly no efforts were spared to have fairness and equity all round. The one point which has caused most controversy and public comment is the matter of the levy on farmers. I would reiterate my view that the accounts system with a threshold of £20 valuation is a fair system. Farm leaders should avail of the opportunity to have this system introduced. It would be for the long-term good of the farming community. This annual and regular confrontation we have at various public meetings, on television programmes and so on regarding the farming community getting away with not contributing their fair share of taxation and the urban people having to foot the bill for everything should be discontinued once and for all. We should have a system across the board where people earning an income in excess of their tax-free allowance would pay their share of tax based on the same system and no finger pointed at any sector of the community accusing them of not pulling their weight.
So far as the farming community are concerned, they are pulling their weight. Outside of Dublin two out of every three jobs are provided by industries resulting either directly or indirectly from farming. The towns around rural Ireland would not be able to exist without farming and any townsman would agree that when times in farming are bad they are bad for all businesses. Another aspect is that there is such a low import content in farming. It is a native resource. It is infinitely more important to the balance of payments because, from start to finish, any agricultural home-produced product and any added value which takes place, is added value from the farm on which it is produced to the time it reaches the consumer's table, unlike some of the heavier industries where we can have 80 per cent of the value of the product imported and only a marginal amount of added value within the country. The regional aspects of having a thriving agriculture cannot be overstated because it is the only industry which gets down to the isolated and peninsular areas of the country and gives good and useful employment in those areas.
Deputy Bermingham referred to children's allowances. I compliment the Minister on improving and increasing children's allowances because any reasonable person would have to agree that households with children, and in particular younger children, cost far in excess of households where only adults reside. The cost of schooling, clothes, footwear and so on for these children is very high and the increases introduced by the Minister are most welcome.
The improvements in the allowances for the veterans of the War of Independence are welcome. Those fine old people—sadly there are fewer of them left here nowadays—deserve recognition of the services they gave to their country. It is only fair and fitting that they be given due allowances and recognition for the service and for the opportunities they provided for this generation. Living in a rural area and making representations on behalf of mainly isolated rural people I found the anomaly regarding people living alone being the only people entitled to this allowance caused a great deal of hardship and was certainly unfair. I would like to welcome that improvement whereby we now have a situation where veterans living with their wives or with an invalid will also be entitled to the telephone rental subsidy. The extensions of those schemes show the concern and the social conscience of the Minister in trying to ease the lot of old people who live alone in isolated areas.
The main impact of the budget is that it is in line with the Fianna Fáil promises of 1977 and with the strategy for rebuilding our economy. After the 1978 budget some observers questioned whether the targets set out were capable of being reached, but subsequently any such misgivings were dissipated and eventually the people concerned had to adjust their figures to bring them into line with the figures set by the Government originally.
One depressing aspect of the comments on this budget was the kind of language used by the Opposition, in particular in their criticism. They referred to "juggling", to "cooking books" and so on. But Fianna Fáil have been the first political party in Western Europe to set out definite targets and they must be complimented on this. Any objective assessment of their performance so far would have to show that to date the targets outlined in the manifesto have been substantially reached. The targets set out in the budget, as opposed to definite figures, should not be used and twisted in an effort to attack the Minister for Finance or to accuse him of dishonest accounting practices.
Part of the Budget Statement deals with the question of job creation. We are told than money has been allocated to ensure the continuance of the job-creation programme and in particular to ensure the provision of opportunities for younger people. To date these schemes have been singularly successful. They are the means of providing people with jobs in their own areas, especially in the productive sector. This situation will be of considerable benefit to the economy as a whole in the future. Surely it is much more desirable that people be engaged in gainful employment in their own country where they are contributing their share to the Exchequer by way of taxation rather than to have a situation in which people must either emigrate or depend on social welfare payments.
The job creation programme offers important incentives for industrialists to employ people and if workers show an interest in their jobs they are usually retained permanently by their employers. This programme benefits school leavers in particular for whom it is very rewarding to be able to find a job after their long stints at primary, secondary and/or third-level education, as the case may be.
I welcome also the allocation of money for the improvement of educational services. It is important that the proper facilities be provided for modern education. A very important aspect of education, too, is physical education. It is important in the overall development of the individual. Therefore, in any school complex there should be facilities for physical education and recreation. These, then, are my observations on this budget.
