Vol. 322 No. 8
I move:
That a sum not exceeding £47,159,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 1980, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Revenue Commissioners, including certain other services administered by that Office.
In regard to the Revenue Commissioners I am afraid I cannot bestow the same bouquet with the same glad heart on them as I did on the Commissioners of Public Works. I want to reiterate in the Minister's presence a suggestion I made more than once before, which is that the Revenue Commissioners when issuing any kind of demand to any member of the public ought to use a form which incorporates a notional 100p broken down into the heads of services for which State expenditure is being incurred in that year. That is not an eccentric idea. It was a practice followed by Dublin Corporation in issuing rates demands and presumably still is to those who still pay rates. Quite likely other local authorities did the same thing. That performed a certain function of public instruction and enlightment because the ratepayer could see that for every £ he was paying in rates 2p was going for street lighting, a shilling was going for rubbish collection, so much for health, so much for housing and so on. That had a certain marginal function in public enlightenment and instruction.
Nowadays, every Minister seems to regard no speech as complete unless he has thrown into it some bleating words about moderation in making demands. One cannot expect moderation in making demands from people who do not know what their money is being collected for. Any move, however marginal, which will tell people and explain to them what State revenue is being expended on would be helpful even to the Ministers over there, little though they deserve the help of a suggestion like that.
Obviously there is no comparison between Dublin Corporation or any local authority and Government services. It is not confined to Dublin Corporation. Every local authority have that practice. Deputy Kelly must appreciate that if the Revenue Commissioners were to send out details of how the moneys collected were expended they would have to send out the total picture of Government expenditure. Obviously he is not talking about a document but a very substantial booklet. I do not know exactly what Deputy Kelly has in mind, but the range of Government activities nowadays is so wide and comprehensive that it would be impossible to send a short list.
I am suggesting that it could be done in a simplified form. For example, out of every £ which the State disposes of, roughly 43p goes on public service pay and pensions, roughly 27p goes on paying interest on the national debt, roughly so much goes on social services and roughly so much else on defence and things like that. I am not asking for a Book of Estimates but about ten simple heads which a citizen can understand and which will make him aware of the functions and the services for which the money being taken from him is being used.
It is easy to say ten simple heads which the citizen can understand. That would be fine if that were feasible. I will take note of what Deputy Kelly has said.
