asked the Minister for Finance the action the Government intend to take to reduce our dependence on borrowed money.
Ceisteanna — Questions. Oral Answers. - Borrowed Money Dependence.
16.
(Clare): The Government have already taken action in this year's budget to reduce the current budget deficit and thereby our dependence on borrowing. Further proposals in this regard will be set out in the economic plan, the preparation of which is well advanced.
Is it the Minister's answer, and his only answer, that the action the Government intend taking is to be found in their budget statement of March? Is that the extent of the Government's intent?
(Clare): The first sentence of my reply was:
The Government have already taken action in this year's budget to reduce the current budget deficit and thereby our dependence on borrowing.
I know that what the Minister has read is simply an answer that has been given to him by the Department, but how can he come here and with a straight face give that kind of answer, when already the deficit forecast only three months ago for the entire year has been reached after only half the year has expired? How can the Minister and the Department only a fortnight after that announcement give what I can only describe as an impudent answer? What steps are they taking now to leave themselves in a position to work towards the objective referred to by Deputy L'Estrange in his question, given that our position is very substantially worse than it was when the March budget was presented?
(Clare): I have said that action in this regard was taken in the budget and I am sure the Deputy will recall the proposals contained in that budget and will realise that many of these will not have effect until the second half of the year. Because of this there will be increased revenue under subheadings during the second half of the year. To give some examples, VAT on imports is proposed to yield £140 million for the second half of the year. Corporation tax will yield an extra £36 million while in respect of bank and insurance the figure will be £22.5 million. There will be an increase of £28 million in respect of An Bord Gáis. These are figures for increased revenue for the latter half of the year.
Will the Minister not admit that raiding the cash box of An Bord Gáis is a one-off operation? Corporation tax and the various other items referred to——
The Deputy must ask a question. Would he put his remarks in the form of a question?
Would the Minister agree that in regard to all these items — I suppose the most important and conspicuous being the bringing forward of the value-added tax payments to the point of import — in as much as they must ease the budget situation in 1982, are bound to make the situation that much worse in 1983? The Minister might forgive me — I do not mean to offend him personally — but how is it possible for his Department to glibly give him some supplementary briefing, behind the stereotype question? If this question is further pursued, read out these one, two, three, four items, these items which a child could see only reinforce the point which Deputy L'Estrange was concerned to make.
Deputy, these remarks are more pertinent to a Finance Bill. We had a debate on the Finance Bill and there will be an Adjournment Debate.
What is he at?
Deputy L'Estrange asked the specific question: what was being done to reduce our dependence on foreign borrowing and he was given what I can only call an impudent answer, an answer referring to a budget which is already discredited, one of the main points against which was that while it undoubtedly——
Deputy, you and I could have a private debate on this, but you can only ask a supplementary.
Could I bring the Minister back from these flights of fancy about revenue in the second half of the year to the question. May I ask him: is it not the case, from the figures he gave us in reply to Question No. 14, that the increase in national debt interest this year looks like being double the increase in GNP? How can he reconcile that with the concept of reducing dependence on borrowed money?
(Clare): Just to clarify why I gave those figures. I gave them because Deputy Kelly described my original answer to the question as glib, or some other such description.
It was irrelevant.
(Clare): He asked how I could justify this. That is why I gave those figures to Deputy Kelly.
I am asking a supplementary on the question and on the Minister's reply. The Minister's reply did not in fact relate to the question. I am asking the Minister: is it not the case, arising from his reply to Question No. 14, that the increase in national debt interest this year will be rising at twice the rate of increase in GNP, of the order of 32 per cent and 16 per cent respectively, within a few percentage points? Can the Minister reconcile that appalling performance with the suggestion implicit in his irrelevant reply, but which can be no more than implicit, that there is an attempt being made to reduce our dependence on borrowed money?
(Clare): If the Deputy is referring to Question No. 14, the rise in interest payments is approximately £300 million——
Exactly.
(Clare):——for the reason that most of the interest on last year's borrowing comes on stream the following year, as the Deputy probably knows.
That does not answer the question. The point at issue is that the interest is rising at double the rate of increase in GNP and the interest this year will be rising even faster arising from borrowing.
(Clare): Well in regard to the question whether interest rates will or will not go down at this stage of the year, they may well go down, but some banks did not think so.
May I ask the Minister how the economic and social plan to which he referred will set out measures to deal with reducing our dependence on borrowing? Furthermore, does he accept that using the pending publication of this document as a means of not answering questions in this House is unsatisfactory from the point of view of the House as a whole?
(Clare): A Cheann Comhairle, it is not a question of my refusal to answer questions. I said it was premature to give details of the plan which has not yet been put through Government. The Deputy, as he knows well, will have full details concerning that plan in due course.
Is it not the case that the Government even now, in advance of the publication of this plan, should have a policy which the Minister should be able to answer for about reducing borrowing anyway, plan or no plan, and will he not tell us what that is?
(Clare): The Deputy asked me for details of the plan. I gave him the reason I could not give details of the plan.
Might I ask the Minister: if it is premature for us in this House to ask questions about the plan why is it not premature for the Government to leak details almost day by day to the papers about it?
It is the Government's privilege.
The Minister for Agriculture has been sitting there like a crocodile sunning himself on the banks of the Zambezi for the last half hour, but now something has stirred him up.
(Clare): I presume Deputy FitzGerald is referring to one of the daily papers this morning——
I have called the next question.
(Clare):——and I have already said that the details, as given in that paper, are not in accordance with the facts. Perhaps the Deputy did not hear me.
A Cheann Comhairle, am I not in order in suggesting that if it is the Government's privilege to leak information it is our right to ask questions about it and that it is the Government's duty to answer?
(Clare): As I have informed the House already, the plan will be made available to the House as soon as possible.
As soon as the Dáil has gone into recess and the Minister cannot be asked any questions about it.