asked the Minister for Labour the expected yield from the proposed 1 per cent youth employment levy on gross incomes, taxable incomes and all incomes in excess of £120 per week.
21.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Youth Employment Levy.
20.
asked the Minister for Labour if he will exempt all old age and retirement pensions from the 1 per cent youth employment levy.
22.
asked the Minister for Labour if he will apply the I per cent levy on incomes in excess of £120 per week in the forthcoming youth employment legislation.
With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 20, 21 and 22 together.
The scope of the youth employment levy contained in the Youth Employment Agency Bill will generally be the same as that used for collecting health contributions.
Based on Department of Health estimates, the expected yield from a 1 per cent levy on gross incomes, with some minor exceptions for medical card holders and social welfare recipients, is roughly £63 million in 1982-83.
Information on the expected yield in respect of taxable incomes is not available. The Government programme provides for a levy on all incomes.
Based again on Department of Health estimates, the expected levy yield from incomes in excess of £120 per week is roughly £30 million and such incomes will be liable to levy.
I intend to exempt contributory and non-contributory old age and retirement pensions from the youth employment levy.
The Minister would agree that it is desirable to exempt old age pensioners, both contributory and noncontributory. I take that he has confirmed that. Would the Minister also agree that it is desirable to exempt those on low incomes from this charge? I appreciate that the figure which the Minister has given would greatly reduce the figures which he has in mind, but could he give consideration to exempting from the 1 per cent those, particularly families, on low incomes?
The Deputy is quite correct that we are exempting old age pensioners from the levy. In the case of the other category to which he has referred, this will depend, quite honestly, on what he considers to be the level. We would have to take that into account before a change could be made. The product of the levy will, obviously, determine what can be done in this whole area.
Is the Minister aware that the imposition, particularly on low income families, of the levy on gross income, as would apply, would be particularly serious for those with a sizeable family? For instance, a man with a wife and five children on £120 a week will be paying £1.20 per week, whereas a single person on a similar income would also be paying £1.20 a week. There is a considerable inequity in the way that this would bear on families, especially on the lower income levels. That is why I ask the Minister to give some consideration to that aspect.
Does the Minister agree that the collection of the levy, on the basis of the health contributions, is one which is relatively inequitable for PAYE workers, in that it is very difficult to collect the health contributions from those who are not involved and the amount collected there is considerably less than might be realised.
I take the point that the Deputy is making. We have this morning introduced the Bill and I understand that on Committee Stage we will be discussing all the points raised by the Deputy. I will give the Deputy's point some consideration and also the other points raised by him.
In his statement this morning to the House on the Second Stage of the Bill, the Minister stated that £63 million would be the income from the 1 per cent levy. Further on in his statement he said——
Would the Deputy please ask a question?
——that preliminary consideration was being given to excluding low paid workers. Have the Government taken a decision on that? It is most unusual for a member of the Government to cost something in the House and then say that preliminary consideration has been given to it. That means that the Government have not made up their minds about the lower paid worker.
The consideration being given by the Government is, obviously, in a budgetary context. I am not in a position to tell the result of these deliberations. If any changes are made during that deliberation, all Deputies would wish that it would be applied to the youth employment field.
This is more relevant to the Bill which is at present before the House. We did not realise that the Bill was coming to that stage. Could I ask a final supplementary? Did I understand the Minister to say that all medical card holders will be excluded?
Yes.
I take it that the Minister is aware of the nature of the distribution of medical cards, that in some counties it is 66 per cent of the population and these would be excluded, whereas in Dublin the distribution is 22 per cent of the population? Would the Minister look at the imposition here? I appreciate the element at which the Minister is trying to get among those medical card holders and it is reasonable that these should be excluded. However, the way the medical card system operates would bear unfavourably on certain sectors.
I am sure that the Deputy would not want me to reduce the numbers in the 66 per cent distribution area to the Dublin level and it would not be a matter for me in my Department to increase to 66 per cent the Dublin distribution. That is a matter for the Minister for Social Welfare.
Could I get clarification on one point? I understood the Minister to say that the Government are considering the extent of exclusion in a budgetary context. Does that mean that the Minister envisages the Bill being passed by this House and perhaps the other House, without any decision being announced as to who is in or out?
No, that will not be the case. When I mentioned that it was in the budgetary context, I meant that it was in the context of who were low paid and who were not. I will be talking on Committee Stage about low paid workers.
Will the Minister spell out the Government's decision during the course of the debate?
Not the budgetary decision.
No, but the decision on this issue.
Exactly.