asked the Minister for Finance the effects of the postal dispute on (a) collection of income tax, and other Government revenue and (b) the disbursement of Exchequer payments.
27.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Postal Dispute Effects.
25.
asked the Minister for Finance the total estimated shortfall in Government revenue caused by the postal dispute, to the latest date for which figures are available.
With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 25 and 27 together.
The collection of Government revenue and the disbursement of Exchequer payments were held up by the Post Office dispute. It is estimated that revenue was reduced by about £200 million. This backlog will now be followed up without delay with the resumption of Post Office services, but the arrears may not be made good in full before the end of 1979.
Exchequer expenditure as shown in the end-June statement of Exchequer receipts and issues was not significantly affected by the dispute. However, a significant element of the expenditure shown represents payable orders prepared for issue but which, because of the dispute, could not be transmitted to the payee for encashment. These payable orders will be cleared fairly quickly.
How much of the £200 million does the Minister expect he will not get in at all?
That is difficult to estimate. It relates primarily to Post Office services, things like telephone calls not made and telegrams not sent. Any figure I would put on it would be extremely tentative. It might be in the region of £4 million or £5 million.
About six or eight weeks ago there was mention of the figure of £11 million in lost revenue to the Post Office. Would almost the entire sum be irrecoverable at this stage, apart from any further losses which have occurred in the intervening period?
Figures in regard to the Post Office would be quite different. The question relates to non-recoverable losses. The answer I have given is the best I can give at the moment. It is very tentative and I should not like to be tied to it.
Could the Minister say whether any element of these losses might be related to interest charges which the Government have had to pay and which may not be recoverable from any other source?
No.
26.
asked the Minister for Finance if interest will be paid to the taxpayer in cases where adjustments to tax-free allowances have been withheld owing to the postal strike.
There is no provision in existing law for the payment of interest in the circumstances mentioned by the Deputy. The introduction of such legislation would raise wide issues such as whether provision should also be made to provide for the payment of interest to creditors by persons (including the State) who incurred debts which they voluntarily or involuntarily failed to discharge during the postal dispute or indeed during any other industrial dispute.
I am of the opinion that the issues of policy and administration raised by the question are of an extremely complex and wide-ranging nature and that the introduction of legislation on the lines implied in the question would not be feasible in the short-term at any rate.
Does the Minister not consider that is exaggerating the whole situation? What I am endeavouring to point out is that taxpayers who had extra allowances, and therefore dropped from one tax bracket to another, have been paying tax at the upper rate now for over three months and that the Minister should pay them interest on the money he has had the use of for those three months. I do not think it involves any further implications than that.
I am afraid it does go further than that; it would not be possible to deal with it just on that basis. The question would arise in regard to other payments due by or to the State or State bodies, in exactly the same way and on what basis could one confine it to this dispute?
One confines it by having the legislation so limited that it caters merely for those taxpayers who are paying money to the State which they would not have had to pay but for the fact that there was a postal dispute and they did not receive their certificates of tax-free allowances.
As in the case of wealth tax when interest was paid to people who had paid more than was required of them. Income taxpayers should have the same benefit as wealth taxpayers.
Deputy FitzGerald should be aware that the law provides very specifically in regard to the payment of interest by taxpayers or payment of interest by the Revenue Commissioners in specific circumstances relating to income tax and other taxes. Deputy FitzGerald will be aware of that. But what is dealt with here is something for which there is no provision in existing law.
Is it not true that a provision could be made for this specific case, for people who have made over-payments to the State through no fault of their own?
It would have to be done by way of legislation and, as I have indicated to the Deputy, if one were to introduce such legislation it would raise some of the issues I have mentioned and indeed others I have not mentioned.
Would the Minister not accept that severe hardship is being inflicted on people who have had deducted from them money which they were not due to pay, whose overdrafts accordingly were increased or deposits, if they had them, reduced and were out of pocket to that extent because the State did not fulfil its obligation and that the State refused, even when people came directly to the taxation offices, to give them certificates? In those circumstances would the Minister not accept that he has a moral duty to take steps to reimburse the people who have been affected?
I do not want to prolong this but, to give some idea of the kind of issues that arise here, I am sure Deputy FitzGerald will appreciate that in the cases he has described many of the people concerned will have had a contra benefit in the sense that they did not pay bills which they would otherwise have had to pay.
But that has nothing to do with the State.
Much of it has to do directly with the State and the Exchequer.
Some people may be in that position, not everybody.
Order. Question Time is over. The remaining questions will appear on tomorrow's Order Paper.
I mention this to show that Deputy FitzGerald has not really given much thought to this. I think he has jumped in, as usual, without——
(Interruptions.)
Order. Question Time is over.
The Minister is, as usual, concerned with the well-heeled and articulate people. I am concerned with those who do not live on credit, who cannot live on credit, who are paying cash and who have been deprived of that cash by the Government's ineptitude.
With the permission of the Chair, I wish to raise on the Adjournment the question of the conditions and administration of the recent conservation grants for householders announced by the Minister for the Environment.
I will communicate with the Deputy during the afternoon.
Is there any possibility that the Taoiseach would take Item No. 20 on the Order Paper before the Recess? I would point out to the Taoiseach that we agreed that this Bill would go initially to the Seanad. We were promised three months ago by the Minister for Fisheries that it would be discussed here imminently and nothing has happened since.
It is unlikely, but the Whips can take it up between them later on.
I wish to give notice that it is my intention to raise on the Adjournment the matter of the extension of the salmon season for licensed fishermen and also an extension of the fishing week to include Monday.
I will communicate with the Deputy during the afternoon.