On the RTE news report of the proceedings of this House on this topic at 9 p.m. last evening, it was reported that various people had spoken but that the Minister for Finance was prevented by time constraints from entering into and participating in the debate. That, of course, is a misconception of the rules of the House. Once Deputy Cox had moved his amendment at approximately 5.15 p.m. yesterday it was open to the Minister for Finance to speak at any time he chose. I think I am the eight or ninth Deputy who has spoken on this amendment. Let me make it clear that the Minister could have come in if he had wished. I invite the House to consider why the Minister chose to take the very unusual step of not speaking on the debate on this amendement at a reasonably early stage and to let it go over into a second day before he would intervene. Perhaps the reason, as is quite widely speculated, is that he does not support this proposal at all and that very probably he is in full agreement with the amendment that is now before the House but felt precluded yesterday, pending the meeting of Cabinet this morning, from expressing his views. I hope that when I have concluded we will hear the Minister speak.
Finance Bill, 1993: Report Stage (Resumed).
On a point of order, Sir, I will listen very attentively to what Deputy O'Malley has to say but the practice in this House during all the time Deputy O'Malley has been here is that on Finance Bills the Minister speaks second last on an amendment tabled by an Opposition Deputy and last on an amendment in the name of the Minister.
I am not certain that there is a different practice for Finance Bills but I was a Minister for a great deal longer than the present Minister for Finance and as a Minister I intervened on Report Stage at various points in the debate. I was frequently invited by the proposer of an amendment to speak immediately after him, because it made the debate more meaningful for subsequent speakers and for the proposer if they knew what view the Government was going to take in regard to the amendment. If ever there was a case of being anxious to hear the details of the Governments's view on this matter, it is on this amendment.
We are very fortunate that we are able to debate this matter in the House at all because were it not for the astute drafting of Deputy Cox in getting the amendment tabled in the position where it is, we would have had no debate at all on the matter. I think he had to stretch a point to ensure that we had a debate. As the whole country is outraged by what the Government proposed last week, it seems remarkable that the House came within a hair's breadth of not debating the matter at all and would not have but for the skill of Deputy Cox.
Before going into the detail of the matter it is worth recalling for the benefit of the House what Deputy Michael McDowell said in regard to the provisions of Article 40 of the Constitution. He said it here yesterday and he said it in a newspaper article that was published over the weekend. I have not heard anybody contradict him and that is very significant. I believe the courts will not allow a situation where there is clearly an arbitrary distinction drawn between citizens, where one law binds the great majority and a special law arbitrarily legitimises others' non-compliance with the law. This is a very fundamental aspect of this affair and in many respects makes a great many other arguments about the detail of it somewhat academic and possibly even irrelevant.
Social cohesion, community togetherness and respect for the law have all taken a battering in Ireland in the past few years. In particular, the very concept of equality or egalitarianism, which should underpin a truly Republican constitution and form of government, has been seriously undermined by the spate of business scandals, the steady deterioration in law and order and by a growing feeling that there is one law for the great bulk of citizens and a much more selective, á la carte legal code that can be availed of by a wealthy elite in our society.
This has led to an understandable sense of outrage and dismay on the part of ordinary people up and down the country — the people who, against all the odds of economic recession, get on with the task of making a living and rearing their families. Many of these people are struggling against terrible odds, especially those who are out of work and trying to get by on the dole and other social welfare benefits. That sense of outrage and dismay is shared by people in business who struggle against excessive State costs and against our geographical handicaps but who nevertheless manage to carve out export markets and thereby help to create and sustain jobs for hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens. All these decent people, from every walk of life, have simply been outraged by the golden circles and privileged elites unmasked by such events as the Tribunal of Inquiry into the Beef Processing Industry, the Telecom Ballsbridge site scandal and the insider dealing in the former sugar company.
These events came to light while the Progressive Democrats were in Government and I can certainly say that we sought to act decisively and effectively in investigating these various scandals. The public was, I believe, reassured by the fact that these scandals were tackled and not swept under the carpet. Understandably, they have to suspend judgment on the eventual resolution of these matters since the investigations are still not completed in many cases and in a sense the jury is still out.
I am sorry to interrupt, but clearly the Deputy is straying very far from the amendment before us.
With respect, Sir, I do not think I am. The general mood of public anger and dismay was not fully assuaged by the establishment of these various inquires, and rightly so. The public mood that sought redress for them was a key factor in last November's general election. There was a widespread and justifiable level of public anger that politicians and political parties could not ignore, and no party in this House sought to capitalise more on it than the Labour Party. Indeed, I have little doubt that their historic and remarkable electoral success was in large measure due to their apparent response to the public mood of outrage at scandals and golden circles. The very title of their manifesto in that election summed up their apparent stance. It declared Labour's political objective to be to "Put justice into economics and trust into politics". It is described as a two part programme, which they highlight on the cover of their manifesto. That was backed up by a lot of talk about restoring ethics to Government. Since this strange Government has come to office they have sought to persist with the idea of an Ethics in Government Bill. Well, I am afraid that that highsounding rhetoric that was heard so much from Labour last November, and which reaped them such rich political dividends, sounds more than just a little tawdry and hypocritical today, especially when judged in the context of this proposed and so called tax amnesty.
Many of the tax cheats evaded tax liabilities of 60 per cent in the mid-eighties. Some of these illegally removed from this country £1 million on which £600,000 was legitimately owed to the tax man at that time. The Government is saying to such a person now: "We know you owe us £600,000"— indeed a lot more, because they also owe tax on the interest that that money would have earned abroad since then —"but if you give us just £150,000, we will let you retain all the rest of your illegal gains." Imagine a bank robber taking £6 million in a raid and being told that if he gives back £1.5 million of the £6 million he has stolen we will be satisfied and we will give him immunity against prosecution. That is the clear message which this extraordinary Government of Fianna Fáil and the Labour Party is now sending to wealthy tax cheats and evaders.
I received today a letter from a man who was in recent times the President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland and who was the tax partner in a large accountancy practice in Dublin and also the senior partner in that practice. He is a man of the highest standing in his profession and perhaps I would be permitted to read this letter addressed to me as follows:
Dear Dessie,
You have never previously had a letter of protest from me.
The current proposal for a tax amnesty, with a tax rate of 15%, is so unconscionable that I must protest with all the strength at my command. Should it go through the State will have lost all moral authority in the tax and Social Welfare fields. It is akin to giving the evaders a gift of anything from 50% to 75% of the tax which they should have paid. Bear in mind that it applies to those who did not avail of either of the two previous amnesties.
I have read the various reasons advanced in support of the proposal. They are less than unconvincing.
To argue that by this means the Exchequer gets something where otherwise it would have got nothing carries no weight. Should a bank which has been robbed offer to accept 25% or 50% of the loss from the robbers in return for immunity from prosecution? The answer is obvious. The public would be outraged.
To argue that the Exchequer is badly in need of the money is even more disturbing. Are we all to be relieved of compliance with standards and with law whenever economic need presses?
To argue that there will be a voluntary inflow of capital likely to be utilised in funding increased economic activity is nonsense as any economist will confirm.
To argue that it brings new clients into the system is naive. Those not already in the system are unlikely to accept the invitation to come into the open. In any case, most of the pool of undisclosed savings is likely to be held by persons already in the system.
I urge you to use your influence and vote to have the current proposal withdrawn. It is offensive, bad public policy and will have long-tailed adverse consequences.
Yours sincerely,
I agree with every line in that letter and I cannot imagine anyone in this country of greater standing or qualification to write it. That is his view and he is dealing with tax all his life. Not alone is he an expert on the letter of tax law in this country, he is also, I suggest, an expert on the spirit of tax law in this country.
I received another letter this morning, Sir, addressed to Mr. Noel Dempsey, TD and Mr. B. Fitzgerald, TD, a copy of which was sent to Deputy J. Bruton and I. That letter reads:
Dear Sirs,
I write in connection with the Government's proposed tax amnesty for residents of this State who are behaving in a criminal fashion.
The proposal to award persons who have signed incorrect tax returns (a criminal offence), and thus condone the activities of those who engage in fraudulent actions and reward their dishonesty is grossly offensive to the regular taxpayer.
I am a taxpayer who could have chosen to move money illegally out of the State, but because I am an honest law abiding citizen who believes in democracy it is my obligation and duty to do the patriotic thing. No one likes paying taxes but if you live in a democracy you abide by the rules.
I protest again that your proposal to reward those who have defrauded the system and fellow taxpayers is disgusting and grossly offensive, whilst those who are honest are penalised for being so.
When one harks back to the election platitudes about ethics and high standards one is filled with a sense of being cheated and deceived by the Government elected to serve the people.
I, and countless thousands of others, must wait four years to show our disgust.
Those two letters—one from an ordinary compliant taxpayer and the other from an expert in tax, one of the leading people in the country — sum up the general attitude in this country to what is apparently now proposed by the Government.
I remarked at the outset of my speech that the Minister for Finance had chosen, rather extraordinarily, not to intervene in this debate so far although we have had eight or nine speakers on this amendment up to now. I sympathise with the Minister for Finance because I am well aware that he does not support this proposal and the advice he has got is clearly and obviously against it. He is in a very difficult position, but it is not the first time a Minister, whether of Finance or otherwise, found himself in a position like this. Ministers sometimes have to implement things with which they fundamentally disagree, but they are not particularly important. However, this is of grave importance because it will have repercussions for years to come. If a Minister finds himself in that situation he has an honourable way out rather than acting against his better judgment and against the advice he knows is right.
Press reports suggest that the Taoiseach is the principal author of this illadvised measure and that it is he who has sought to force it through the Government and has apparently succeeded. The best professional advice to him on this proposal is clearly totally against it. That advice was from the Department of Finance, the Revenue Commissioners and outside bodies like the Institute of Taxation and other people such as the man whose letter I have just read. The Taoiseach sought to override that advice for reasons best known to himself. This is a democracy and the Minister is answerable to this House and ultimately to the people. He is entitled to override advice if he believes strongly enough in what he is doing and if he can justify it. However, people should remember what the outcome was when a Taoiseach last ignored the best professional advice that was available to him in 1987 and 1988. The consequences on that occasion were considerable. The consequences on this occasion will be far more wide-reaching. At least what happened on the last occasion was confined, broadly speaking, to one industry, even though it was a major one. This effects everybody in the country. This appals everybody in the country and it will undermine the very consensual fabric on which this or any other democracy is founded.
I know, Sir, that this Government has the largest majority of any Government ever in Dáil Éireann since its establishment; but there comes a time when, if the Government of the day wants to do something which is so absolutely perverse and which undermines our very democratic fabric and the constitutional rights of the ordinary citizens, this House must assert itself. This House is the only bulwark between the Government and the people who will suffer from their action. This is the time when this House should stand up as a House and say to the Government, irrespective of its majority, that we cannot have it, that we will not have it and that the Government will have to withdraw this proposal. I invite this House to do that because this is an occasion when this House should assert the ultimate supremacy of the legislative arm and not enact into law something that is grotesquely unsuitable to be enacted into law. In the last resort, of the three branches of Government, this House is the only one that can stop this happening. I invite this House to support this amendment, which I think pretty well every one in this House privately agrees with, to support the supremacy of the Legislature and thereby the supremacy of the people.
I want to compliment Deputy Cox on putting down this amendment. When the amnesty was announced it was like a cloud hanging over the Finance Committee and we were precluded from discussing it. Dealing with the Finance Bill in those circumstances was like discussing something in a vacuum because we do not know what variations there will be. However, we know the likely form of this amnesty.
In the last few years Irish politics, business etc. has been debased by a series of scandals. The Irish people, 80 per cent of them, particularly PAYE earners, have become very critical of the system. Given the climate out there it is unfortunate that it has been decided to introduce an amnesty now. The idea of an amnesty has been hawked around for many years. It is interesting that during the term of office of the former Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, this idea was floated but he, quite wisely, did not run with it. This Taoiseach appears to be very supportive of the idea. Particularly disappointing is the fact that it has leaked out that many of the Cabinet Ministers do not appear to be supportive of this.
The people who participated in the Finance Committees in the last few years have seen the Revenue Commissioners get a lot of powers. That has lead to a certain amount of criticism which comes back on politicians. In the last few days three different businesses contacted me and were extremely critical of this amnesty. In one case a small businessman had the sheriff screaming for £160 because his VAT returns were late. The businessman in question told the sheriff in no certain terms where to get off, but obviously there will be a follow-up to that saga. That businessman made that complaint in the context of this amnesty. Another case related to a businessman whose VAT payments were in arrears over the year and who got a penalty of £800. One might say it is right that this should be so. Maybe it is, because the powers have been given to the Revenue Commissioners. However, many of those small business people are finding it difficult to sustain families and keep the show going and they feel that there is a punitive tax regime in operation. To introduce an amnesty in that context surely flies in the face of logic.
It is interesting that in recent times the media have been saying that the country is awash with money. The devaluation, which many people feel should have taken place sooner, has impacted by improving the finances in this country. One wonders then whether it is wise to consider an amnesty at this point. Maybe when we had inflated mortgages and interest rates and needed extra money in the economy it might have made sense, but it certainly does not now. I am appalled at the whole idea. Take the example of the PAYE worker. He has to pay PAYE, PRSI, an employment levy, a health levy and, under the recent Finance Bill, a further 1 per cent levy. These people are buffeted on all sides. Can you imagine what they must think when they see tax evaders, people who have cheated the system, being rewarded, because that is what is happening? If those people had any loyalty to the country they would not have taken their money out and put it into the tax havens, as they have done over the years. We are talking about very wealthy people in many cases how have invested abroad. If those people felt that way in the past, how can we be sure that they will bring the money back into the country? I would imagine that if I were in that situation and had benefited in the past I would be very reluctant to do so on the basis that the Revenue Commissioners would then be aware who the tax evaders, the tax cheats were. The companies involved may fear extra harrassment afterwards and may think twice about bringing their money back.
People are comparing this with the amnesty that was introduce in 1988 but, as has been said by many speakers, it is much different. It is worthwhile noting that Cathal MacDomhnaill, when addressing the Committee of Public Accounts last April, stated in relation to the sum of £547 million revenue received in 1988, that it would probably have been feasible at that stage for the Department of Finance to recover much of that money, given time, because they were aware of the tax evaders and there were only some cases about which they were unaware.
This amnesty measure flies in the face of logic. It is not right. I respect what the Minister for Finance has been trying to achieve in this area in recent years. This amnesty measure will make life more difficult for officials in his Department and in the Revenue in that they will be confronted by people who consider they have supported the system down the years. Those people will react and tell officials in the Department of Finance and in Revenue to stop screwing them. When the cheats, the fat cats and those who have made a great deal of money out of the system can hide money abroad, bring it here and have to pay only 15 per cent tax on it. It is illogical. I was interested to hear the Taoiseach's comments on the radio yesterday on his return from Malaysia. He mentioned the word "economy" 12 times in a short space of time. He stated that if this money is recovered it will stimulate investment and create more jobs. I wonder is this realistic? I do not see those people investing their money in this country, being latterday patriots and creating jobs.
Like other speakers, I am surprised at the Labour Party's stand on this issue. We get elected on our policies, but in some cases we may get elected under false pretences. The Labour Party have lectured us on ethics many times since the election. What is happening is unethical. Deputy Toddy O'Sullivan said yesterday that he has had many meetings during the week about this issue. There is a reaction from the electorate; they say this measure is wrong. If it is wrong it can still be amended. If it is unwise and foolish to proceed with it, we should take a logical decision and back away from it. The move is ill-conceived, ill-timed, wrong, a hypocrisy and a mockery of the electorate who tried to do the right thing in the past.
I have some faith in the Minister in relation to his taking commonsense decisions. As previous speakers have said, if the Minister considers this measure to be wrong he should say so to the Taoiseach. Many more people would respect the Minister for doing that. His constituents, the majority of whom come from the PAYE sector and of whom many are unemployed, would respect him for acting. The Taoiseach is a successful businessman but he should realise he is running the country and has a responsibility to this House. At Cabinet level he should not act like Rambo. If members of the Cabinet consider such a measure to be wrong and if the professional advice given by the Revenue, the Department of Finance, the Institute of Taxation, chartered accountants and other groups say that it is wrong, surely it is illogical to proceed with it. Should the Minister ignore the advice of those various groups and individuals, he will do so at his peril.
This House has been debased because the electorate are inclined to tarnish all politicans with the same brush. They consider that we let such measures go through. They have been sickened by scandals that have persisted in the past. We are driving another wedge into the Irish body politic by introducing a measure of kind in question. The electorate are sickened by what is happening. If we allow this measure go through, it will have long term implications for politicians. It will damage the system and halt the progress that appears to have been made by the Department of Finance and Revenue in the past to reduce tax evasion. It will have a corosive effect on the taxation system. It is wrong and we should be logical enough to realise that. We should not proceed with this tax amnesty. Economists and journalists writing in the weekend newspapers reported that this country is awash with cash. That is welcome but they do not consider that the climate is conducive for the introduction of this amnesty. I hope commonsense will prevail and that when this measure is rationally thought out the Minister will not proceed with introducing it.
Having listened carefully to the debate on this section of the Bill I am even more convinced that we need a tax amnesty. There have been many self-righteous and unconvincing arguments put forward to justify opposition to the measure. The Opposition have behaved like a chorus of altar boys living in an unreal world. Politicans live in the real world and are aware that there are those who support tax evasion. In our society tax evasion is endemic, it is widespread. Politicans know the reality of life to a greater extent than many others. The argument against this measure is a monument of bogus punditry, it is sound and fury signifying nothing. It is hypocrisy.
Kemmy, you have changed a lot.
I am Deputy Kemmy and the Deputy should not call me "Kemmy" in the House. He should not descend to such guttersnipe level.
Deputy Kemmy has changed a lot.
Deputy Kemmy, without interruption.
Deputy Cox should withdraw his comment. He should refer to me as Deputy Kemmy. There must be some standards and ethics in the House. I am surprised at Deputy Cox.
I will respond to the Deputy later.
As a Member of this House and of the European Parliament, the Deputy should not behave in the manner in which he is behaving.
Get to the point.
The Deputy is letting down his party and this House by the manner in which he is behaving. I did not interrupt the Deputy.
Acting Chairman
Deputy Kemmy, without interruption.
I have not received telephone calls or letters on this issue. I have received many letters and telephone calls in respect of the 1 per cent levy on the £9,000 threshold introduced in the budget and on the proposed increase in the cost of telephone calls. I have received many letters in respect of those two issues. I have not received any letters or telephone call in respect of the proposed tax amnesty. I state that as chairman of the Labour Party and as a wellknown politican. That is the reality.
As I stated before I was interrupted by Deputy Cox, tax evasion in our society is endemic and widespread. It affects politicians, journalists, trade union employees, etc. There is a case in the media today in respect of this issue. Many people evade taxes on their income. That is the position. Politicians are aware of this and they try to maximise their expense as in respect of travel, that is also well known.
The Deputy should speak for himself.
I speak for myself. I have been travelling by train from Limerick to Dublin since I came to the House 12 years ago.
The Deputy should be more specific if he is making allegations against Members of the House.
I am not squeamish about being investigated. I can stand in this House and take criticism from any Member. My record is clear on any issue and that is why I have spoken on issues during the years and will take issue with anybody in our society. I am not part of any golden circle. I receive little income in respect of election campaigns. My election campaign cost me £4,000, which I raised largely myself. I fight campaigns on income I receive and I can speak in the House without fear or favour. Journalists are not in a position to point the finger at anybody. They are not paragons of virtue. They have been known to doctor their expenses. I have heard much hypocrisy during the last two days, but I will talk to any Member on any issue in this House. I came here this morning to face down the Opposition. Anything they have to say to me can be said now, I will face them head on.
So far as I am concerned there are three ways of looking at this question. The first is to ignore the money invested abroad and adopt the attitude of the three monkeys, see nothing, hear nothing and do nothing, about it: leave it out there. It is nice to be on the side of the angels but there are no angels when it comes to tax evasion. The second way is to condemn the practice and say that those people who invested the money abroad are unpatriotic, have behaved in an illegal and immoral way for taking the money from this country and investing it overseas to avoid paying taxes on it. We must not forget also that many of our accountants have made tax evasion an art form here. One celebrated accountant, now deceased, worked totally in the area of holding money for people, sometimes writers or celebrities, and enabling those people to avoid paying taxes on that money. That is a very well known fact. It is well known that other accountants also make their living from tax evasion.
The third aspect is a more realistic one and a more difficult one to confront, namely, to accept the fact that a large amount of money — it could be £2 billion or £3 billion — is invested abroad. It should not be invested abroad, it would be much more beneficial if it was invested in Ireland. We must accept that people who have money invested abroad did not pay their legal taxes originally and it would be difficult to get it back here in order to make these people pay their fair share of taxes. Fine Gael cannot point the finger at anybody as their amendment proposed that 10 per cent tax should be paid on this amnesty. Only last week in this House Fine Gael were in favour of a tax amnesty and charging a 10 per cent levy on the money being returned. I do not say how the money should be taxed when it is returned. We should try to recoup as much as possible, entice some of it into Government bonds and also into productive investment here.
The question of a tax amnesty is not unknown in stronger economies than ours. In more recent years Germany and France, to name two European countries, had to resort to tax amnesties to recoup money invested abroad. Germany and France have two of the strongest economies in the European Community. They had recourse to that action and we are now required either to do the same or ignore it. We have no other way of tackling the matter. I also hope that if the money is returned here a number of measures could be adopted. The hypocrisy that is evident on this side of the House is very manifest when it comes to Private Members' Motions and Private Members' Bills. Every week we have a chorus requesting our Ministers to spend more money without telling us where that money should come from.
Our Minister for Health, Deputy Howlin, is one of the most capable and caring Ministers in this House. However, he is besieged every week by people looking for money and, occasionally, I besiege him also in leading deputations to him concerning child abuse in our society and implementing the Child Care Act at a cost of £40 million. In more recent times the friends and parents of the mentally handicapped have been lobbying Members looking for £16.5 million, including £6.5 million for my area in the mid-west. Their case is a deserving one and they have carried out great work for the mentally handicapped. Recently we had a deputation of physically handicapped people seeking money from the Government. Throughout the country hospitals also require improvements and rebuilding, including my area of Ennis, Milford Hospice in Castletroy and many more. Members support those claims for funding without indicating to the Minister where the money should come from.
It is impossible for us to impose further taxes unless we put a tax on cigarettes. Apart from that, there is no other way we can levy taxes. We in the Labour Party have no facility for printing our own money, unlike another party in this House in the past when it was alleged they had their own facility for printing money. I often wished I could do that but we do not have such a facility. In the absence of that, I can say that I do not condone people acting illegally or in an immoral way by not paying their taxes here but it is a problem that is widespread. It is not confined to those who invest their money abroad. It is all around us and people who invest in political parties at election times are not asked by the political parties where the money is coming from. When a barrister defends in court someone involved in paramilitary activity he does not ask where the money to pay him or her is coming from. This issue is not black and white and there are very few "Simon Pures" in this House, or the other House, as far as I am concerned.
We are enduring a year of crisis with 300,000 people unemployed and we must face the reality of this issue. We must recoup as much of this money as possible. We should not have a series of amnesties, let this be the last one and let it be enforced strictly and correctly. In future we must examine how these people were able to take the money out of the country in the first instance. That is the more pertinent question, how they could do this with impunity. That loophole must be closed and when the money is returned we must ensure those people are brought back into the tax net and that they pay their fair share of taxes like the rest of us. That would be a far more positive and constructive attitude to adopt than to behave as the Opposition is behaving today by engaging in a chorus of cat-calls and abuse in the House. They are burying their heads in the sand on this issue. At the end of the day if we do not introduce this tax amnesty our economy and the PAYE sector will be no better off and we will gain nothing. If this amnesty goes ahead, if it is successful and the money is returned and taxes are levied on the people involved, that money can be used in an intelligent way to achieve some of the aims I mentioned in relation to the problem of unemployment, eliminating the 1 per cent levy and promoting services for the mentally and physically handicapped.
These are positive ways to deal with the problem and I am not impressed by the behaviour of the Opposition. I found their tax proposals totally unconvincing, and totally personalised. In private some have indicated different views to me. They have told me in private they support the amnesty but in public they are striking a posture. They do not convince me. On the contrary, the more I hear from them the more I am convinced that this amnesty is not only necessary but can be beneficial for our country. I am not a masochist, I am not a Matt Talbot socialist, but I do not believe in people suffering. If we can get into our economy money that can be used to alleviate stress and unemployment that is a good measure and I am pragmatic in that respect. Therefore, I am supporting the introduction of this amnesty and I will not change my mind.
I listened with interest to the last contribution and even though it begged a reply and a few retorts I will refrain from that. I commend the tabling of this amendment and, indeed, the mover of it for the ingenuity he applied to it and his obvious understanding of procedure within this House which has enabled a fairly elaborate debate to take place on the Government's tax amnesty proposal.
I feel also, having listened to many of the contributions on this Finance Bill both on Committee Stage and on Report Stage, that the Minister for Finance is probably not the author of this proposal. As has been suggested by others, if he does not support this amnesty and if it is being jack-booted through by the Government, it really is a question of him considering his position in Cabinet for the sake of his integrity. Either he is fully behind the decision as the Minister responsible in this area or he is not. If it is being forced on him he owes it to the House to indicate his position and for is own sake he should take advice from colleagues on all sides and indicate where his position as Minister for Finance now lies.
The Government proposal is an unjust attack on the compliant taxpayer, that is the vast majority of the body of taxpayers in this country. They do not like paying tax, the rates of tax have been penal — our time this morning does not allow us to go into why that is so and how we have arrived at this position — but the vast majority of ordinary salary and wage earners, the business people involved in small or medium sized enterprises and most of the larger companies here, have paid their taxes, albeit at penal rates. They may have considered not doing so, they may have envied those who somehow managed to get away with it by salting money abroad. It is our duty in this House not to stand by those who have thwarted the system but to stand by those who, through very difficult times, have upheld the system for the sake of democracy and have complied with legislation and the letter of the law even though at times they have seriously questioned legislation and tax rates here, and understandably so.
The Government proposal is an unjust attack on the compliant taxpayer and on the fabric of society generally. By this proposal, ironically, the Labour Party has been proved right that Deputy Albert Reynolds is unfit to govern. That was Deputy Dick Spring's view last November. That view changed rapidly but I remind the Labour Party of its opinion then and ask whether it was not 100 per cent right. The Labour Party should consider its position. If it wants to retain moral credibility, it should leave Government or else come into the House — to my knowledge we have not heard from any Labour Minister in this debate — and state the reason it supports this amnesty and the details concerning it.
The Taoiseach told us yesterday that there will be no losers, implying he could not understand what all the fuss was about. There will be losers because the terms of the amnesty will undermine good practice in the financial world generally. This follows on the difficulties in the business sector in the last year or two. The amnesty is a very bad signal to those watching, particularly in view of our efforts to establish a financial services centre, to attract financial services to Ireland and establish ourselves as leaders in this field. Business will not invest in a corrupt culture. Under the terms of this amnesty, not only will penalties and interest be waived but a 15 per cent tax rate is suggested for those who bring their money back. The view is that there is a corrupt business culture in Ireland.
Considering the excellent efforts made by many, including the Minister, to establish Ireland as a centre for financial services, I ask him to reconsider the terms of this proposal. There is too much to be lost. I am extremely disappointed, but not surprised, that the extent of the Taoiseach's understanding of the problem is that there will be no losers. Need we say more? If that is his understanding, we are on a loser with Deputy Albert Reynolds as Taoiseach.
I will not go into the whole question of the demoralisation of the Revenue Commissioners. That can be taken as stated and it needs little underlining by me. There must be tremendous fury among the Revenue Commissioners, who have spent some time trying to increase compliance with all taxes, at this amnesty which is being foisted on them. There would be greater acceptance of the proposal if the tax rate for this returned money was set at the original rate that should have been paid. In those circumstances, those benefiting from the amnesty would have to pay the same as was paid by those who stood by their guns and declared their money down the years.
Perhaps the Government will change its mind, at least on the terms of the amnesty. I hope the Minister's silence and the fact that he has been prepared to sit here and listen patiently to so many contributions indicates that changes will be made. Maybe he cannot intervene until he knows what the Cabinet wants to do on this matter. I hope whatever change is introduced in the original proposal will at least ensure that the vast majority of taxpayers will not be undersold by this Labour-Fianna Fáil Government.
Another interesting aspect of this proposal is that there are three Bills which I believe will be deferred not only until the amnesty is introduced but until it has been terminated and the money counted. I do not think this Government, with all the empty rhetoric about ethics in Government and standards in high places, would have the neck to introduce the money laundering convention terms while at the same time operating an amnesty to collect money from all over the country and from non-resident bank accounts. Perhaps the Minister, when replying, will indicate where we stand in terms of compliance with the money laundering convention, when we are going to meet our international and EC obligations in this area and whether he is concerned that there might be a mad rush to launder money through this device before we comply with the terms of that convention. Is the Minister not concerned about this matter? If not, I suggest the whole matter is a dreadful waste of time and the Government's handling of it has brought politics and legislation into further disrepute.
If the amnesty is not used by those whom the Government believes will bring the hot money home, what is the point of it? This will have been an empty debate, there will be no money and the Government will end up with egg on its face. I believe the amnesty may not be used because anyone who went to the trouble of salting money abroad or opening a dozen or so non-resident bank accounts will be very slow to declare that money, given the efforts to ensure compliance by the Revenue Commissioners in recent years. Once this money is declared, the people involved will be at the butt of scrutiny by the Revenue Commissioners for the rest of their days of involvement in economic activity. They may experience a short windfall by bringing the money home at 15 per cent but they would be very foolish to expose themselves to the scrutiny of the Revenue Commissioners who will be on their tail for days, weeks and years to come.
The original proposal has resulted in a loss of moral authority, particularly among taxpayers who do their best to meet the terms of the legislation. I can see this debate going nowhere, resulting in no money and a total loss of face. Fianna Fáil and Labour will get their answer next time round in the polling booths. I am not sure how well this proposal was thought out, but I am sure the regulation for the money laundering convention will not be introduced in this House until this whole matter of the amnesty is out of the way.
As regards the ethics in Government Bill, I doubt if even this Government would have the neck to debate ethics in Government in this House——
Is that relevant to the amendment?
It is very relevant. I am comparing the amnesty to ethics in Government.
The Deputy should confine her remarks to the amendment before us.
I am referring in so far as I can to the issue. How does this amnesty square with the whole concept of ethics in Government? A Deputy who was appointed Minister on day one came into this House and implied that the rest of us who had been here for a longer period are getting fat on the profit from politics and that we are acting a little like the Marcos regime, salting all our money away somewhere — where I am not sure. We had to listen to that from a new Deputy in this House, the same Deputy who will vote for this amnesty proposal and lay this legislation alongside the ethics in Government legislation. That makes this Government the laughing stock of the country. So much for ethics in Government and high standards in high places.
I will not refer to election platitudes because that matter has been well thrashed out, but what about the new Electoral Bill that will require declaration of contributions to political parties? That Bill is almost ready for publication by the Minister for the Environment. If there is unanimity among the Cabinet on this amnesty proposal there must be interest in a particular quarter in getting this hot money home. I question whether certain parties in Government will benefit from jackbooting this legislation through these Houses. Benefit will accrue to one or other of the Government parties — I suspect one of them — before the introduction of the Electoral Bill. That legislation will not be introduced until the amnesty is terminated because it would be embarrassing if certain members of this Government were rewarded and compensated by their pals for looking after them so benignly and kindly in relation to this amnesty. Effectively, the amnesty proposals puts on the backburner the legislation in relation to our international obligations on the money laundering convention, the ethics in Government Bill and the electoral Bill dealing with contributions to political parties. I suggest that the proposal for an amnesty on the terms offered could not square with those Bills.
I agree with Deputy O'Malley about the State losing all moral authority. There will not be a huge inflow of money because the people concerned have enough ingenuity to work out that it will not be in their long time interest to expose their hand at this stage, but as contributors have pointed out any inflow of money to this country will not increase economic activity. That lame justification does not stand up to any scrutiny.
My only surprise in relation to this proposal is that the Labour Party is apparently supporting it wholeheartedly. I invite the electorate to analyse what that tells us about the Labour Party's commitment to integrity and standards in high places. I am not surprised that Fianna Fáil in Government, or that a Fianna Fáil Taoiseach or that Deputy Albert Reynolds fully supports this proposal, nor are the vast majority of the thinking electorate, the electorate which actually cares about our Republic, our democracy, moral authority and about tax compliance. This proposal institutionalises the culture of "the fixer". The culture of "the fixer" has been synonymous with Fianna Fáil for a long time. It institutionalises the culture of "the fixer" and the culture of the "Cute Hoor". Again, Fianna Fáil is identified very accurately by that description. It formalises effectively the culture of Fianna Fáil in our society. This amensty, and the terms of the proposal, is a prizegiving day for law-breakers.
I am sorry that Deputy Kemmy has left the House after making his contribution.
A hit and run.
He came in to tell us that we are all sinners, all guilty of something and, therefore, are not in a fit position to address the question of tax evasion and tax cheating. We are all sinners, apparently, except Deputy Kemmy who travels by train, who runs his election for £4,000 and to whom nobody wrote about the tax amnesty. I am becoming sick and tired of the insufferable arrogance of Deputy Kemmy, who delivers to us regularly sermons from the chair of the parliamentary Labour Party every time there is a controversy facing the Government. On this occasion he has come in to try to dress up an excuse for what is an essentially crude Fianna Fáil stroke. I do not know whether my emotion should be one of anger or one of sadness, but the substance of the argument he gave us is a load of nonsense.
His argument is that this tax amnesty will in some way provide a windfall for the health and the education services and that we will all benefit as a result. The health and the education services here are in such a sorry state precisely because the people who are going to benefit from this tax amnesty salted away their money over the past decade or more and did not pay their fair share of tax to this country to help provide services.
The argument has been advanced that these latter-day prodigal patriots will return and invest in job creation and so on. The people who will bring home their money as a result of this tax amnesty want to do so and will have decided that it is more beneficial to them to bring their money back. The people who have been lobbying for this amnesty, those for whom some Government backbenchers have been articulating the case over the past year or more, are unlikely to have suffered some kind of Pauline conversion in relation to their responsibilities to their fellow citizens or to invest their money in a way that will benefit the people. They are much more likely to invest it in some speculative property purchase or whatever that is likely to benefit them at home.
I was involved in organising the largest public demonstration this country ever saw about 13 years ago when the PAYE taxpayers took to the streets because of their discontent over the tax system. That discontent was not because of an unwillingness to pay tax or anything of that kind. It was because there were people who were not paying their fair share of tax and there was widespread tax evasion. Those of us who argued, for example, that there was widespread evasion and avoidance of tax were told repeatedly that there was no crock of gold, that there was no substantial sum of uncollected or evaded tax. The last amnesty proved how wrong that was when it raised £500 million. We were also told that there was no large scale evasion. Yes, there were people fiddling the dole, but we were told that people who drove big cars, lived in big houses and had big bank accounts would not do something as unpatriotic as evade taxes. Now we are being told that there is anything between £1 billion and £2 billion of money salted away abroad in order to avoid paying taxes.
The impression is being created that the salting away of that money was some kind of neutral act, that the money was simply sent abroad to wait for some more favourable time when it could be brought back home and put to work to the greater benefit and glory of the country. That is far from the reality. The reality is that those who salted away their money abroad, who evaded their taxes and who are now standing to benefit from this tax amnesty have betrayed the people of this country. They have betrayed not only the PAYE taxpayer who had to bear virtually single-handedly the burden of paying the cost of runing this country over the past decade or more, but they have also betrayed the victims of tax evasion and tax cheating.
Tax cheating is a crime that has victims. Tax cheaters are the very people we now hear are going to benefit from the tax amnesty. The victims of tax cheating are the 30,000 people and their families who are on housing waiting lists because the house building programme was effectively suspended in 1987 due to financial stringencies and the need to reduce public expenditure and so on which was argued for at that time. The victims are those who have had to wait for up to two years on a hospital waiting list for an operation because we were told there was not enough money to put into the health services. Unfortunately — this is something that is not often acknowledged — some of those on long waiting lists never had their operations because they were dead before their turn came around.
The victims also are those young emigrants who are now working in bars and on building sites in New York, London and Munich. They were unable to either get an education or a job here because the finances were not available to put into those sectors. The victims are also, incidentially, the employees of Aer Lingus who this morning are protesting outside Dublin Airport because they are worried about their jobs. They are victims in two ways. They were among the PAYE taxpayers who paid the high rates of tax while the tax cheats were benefiting from their gains as a result of salting away their money, and they are victims now because the equity was not available to put into Aer Lingus over the years resulting in the current problems of the company.
As Deputy Kemmy said, tax cheating and tax evasion is not something over which we should bury our heads in the sand and forget about. We need to address them but there are ways to do so. The Revenue Commissioners, their staff and the trade unions who represent them have argued over the years for the resources and the powers to go after tax evaders. Why is it that a task force cannot be established with powers to look at bank accounts and investigate the extent of tax evasion, to go after not only those who may decide voluntarily now to bring home their money but also those who will not? I expect that some people, particularly those who have argued for this tax evasion, believe that somehow that would be an invasion of privacy. Have they not heard of the type of invasion of privacy that somebody on the lowest rung of the social ladder here must face when they apply for a means-tested social welfare benefit or payment, when they have to be subjected to the most humiliating investigation not only of their financial affairs but, in some cases, their personal lives? It appears invasion of privacy is all right for the poor but is not all right in the case of somebody who decides to take money abroad in order to evade paying their fair share for the general upkeep of this country.
It saddens me greatly that the two parties in Government, who would be the first to claim the high ground of patriotism, are now putting through a proposal which is clearly unpatriotic which will validate and benefit those who have done the most unpatriotic thing that one could do over the past ten to 20 years, which is to shirk their responsibilities to help pay for the cost of running the country and provide for the people.
(Carlow-Kilkenny): I join in the objections to this proposed amnesty for tax evaders. I do not wish to delay the House by repeating many of the comments already made.
I was present last evening when a person I regard as the "Stonewall Jackson" of the Labour Party, Deputy Ferris, came in to bat and defend the hospital charges in the usual blustering fashion, to tell us exactly what we should be doing about this proposed amnesty.
That is not Father Paddy Ryan's altar boy, is it?
(Carlow-Kilkenny): I heard Deputy Kemmy talk about tax evasion being endemic here. I would have thought that if anything would get Deputy Kemmy's blood to boil, it would have been the fact that evasion was endemic and that he would be falling down the steps in order to get at tax evaders. It is an amazing turnabout that the Labour Party seems to defend tax evasion at present. I turned on the radio by chance this morning and heard a banker say on the “Gay Byrne Show” that reaction to the proposed amnesty was a form of begrudgery. He omitted to say legitimate begrudgery on the part of taxpayers. Why should a person who pays tax not object to somebody else who has large sums of money put away and who has got away with paying no tax? If that participant this morning on the radio was not a banker I apologise to the other sensible bankers here. I am told he was a banker. Therefore, I do not have to apologise because, obviously, he spoke on behalf of cothrom na Féinne, a phrase very acceptable to Irish people. It means that everybody gets fair play, which is what is involved in this objection to people who could afford to pay tax and did not.
It pains me to hear people support this proposed amnesty, saying that we could use the money for hospital services, schools and so on. If the remainder of us had not been paying our taxes over the years, the country and its services would have come to a halt while those people with plenty of money enjoyed the facilities we provided by paying our taxes. Rather than be rewarded those people should be jailed when they return with their money. Yet they are being held up to us as heroes who will rescue this country although they avoided paying their share of taxation over the years.
They will render Fianna Fáil solvent, though, in the effort; that should not be missed.
(Carlow-Kilkenny): They may indeed. The fact that we have been criticised by others for objecting to this implies that we did not pay our taxes willingly. I must admit that since 1957 I paid tax most unwillingly because in those years I appeared to be one of the few teachers paying tax. However, gradually more and more were brought into the net. I must also admit that I never went to the dentist nor underwent an operation willingly. Nonetheless I had no objection to paying my fair share of tax like everybody else. I do not want to hear people who shirked their duty, disappeared with their money, now crib that objection on my part is a form of begrudgery or small mindedness.
If the money is repatriated and is put to good use some people will say: were we not marvellous to have got it back? I will feel very annoyed regardless of how the money is expended because the people who avoided paying taxes had no qualms about using the services provided from our taxes while they did not pay any.
I object to this proposed amnesty for those who did not pull their weight here but took the soft option.
It must be very difficult for the Minister to listen to us highlighting the sense of outrage that undoubtedly the Minister knows is felt by the people. I was amazed to hear Deputy Kemmy say he had not received as much as a telephone call or letter about this proposed amnesty. I wonder whether he lives in the same country — I know he lives in a different part of the country — but I can assure him that, in Dublin the dogs in the street are talking about this amnesty; everybody is outraged about it. It is amazing that Deputy Kemmy should be willing to live off the immoral earnings of others and to allow our economy to be run on the immoral earnings of others.
The word "outrage" has been used if not over-used in relation to the tax amnesty proposals. On the one hand, we are told about the compliant taxpayer and how outraged are the PAYE sector, those who have no option but to pay their taxes on time which, in turn, provide the services so badly needed. On the other hand, I have heard a great sense of outrage on the part of the business community — not people who have any desire to be within any golden circles — at the assumption that, if one is in business one must be a member of some golden circle. Ordinary decent business people find there is a parallel being drawn between this proposed amnesty and that of 1988. Indeed, Deputy Power drew such a parallel in this Chamber only yesterday. It is untrue and unfair to castigate those who availed of that amnesty in the same way as those who may avail of this proposed amnesty deserve to be castigated.
In 1988 we were in the teeth of a filthy recession. Many genuine business people were put to the pin of their collar to survive, tried to trade their way out of a recession and just about keep ahead of the posse. These ordinary decent people did not want any trouble with the Revenue Commissioners, they wanted to pay their taxes but, because they had allowed themselves to fall behind, found they had to pay very punitive penalties in addition to their lawful taxes. Many people had to borrow money to avail of the amnesty at that time. The Revenue Commissioners knew who those people were; these were not faceless people about whom we knew nothing. They were on the books, and they wanted to go legitimate. Those people were not salting their money overseas. They were a genuine component of our economy, were contributing to it and were providing employment here. They were not cheats who were sending their money overseas. The money does not come from ordinary decent business people. Rather it comes from people who are prepared to cheat other Irish taxpayers and business people. I share the sense of outrage felt by the business community about this amnesty. To whom is it being offered? Who are the people who are to be seized by a massive dose of patriotism and come home? I find it hard to believe that people who, for a number of years, have been cheating the system will be compliant, come home and give 15 per cent of their ill-gotten gains to the State.
A number of figures have been bandied about. For instance, the figures of £1 billion and £2 billion have been mentioned. We all know that it is nonsense to suggest that this money is ready to be collected. These figures were plucked out of the air. The money will not help to solve our interest rate problem. It has nothing to do with it. It would not be used to provide the services that Deputy Kemmy spoke about. It should not be used to fund once-off projects. If anything it should be used to reduce our national debt and interest repayments.
It is beyond belief that people, who by their very nature are unpatriotic, will repatriate this money. Who are these people and why are they being enticed back? Deputy Doyle offered one answer to that question and I am tempted to believe the suggestion she made.
I have often made the remark that the people who are held in low regard, because of recent scandals, are politicians and business people. As someone who comes from a business background, that hurts. If I said I was a businesswoman, people would say I was a tax dodger.
"One of those".
If I am to believe Deputy Kemmy, as a politican I am on the take and fiddling my expenses. If Deputy Kemmy were present I would ask him to prove to me and this House that I have fiddled my expenses. I am outraged that he made such a suggestion. He engaged in flimflam about this amnesty and then disappeared because he knew that the argument he was making was totally fallacious and had nothing to do with the amendment put down by my colleague.
Where are the members of the Labour Party?
They are too embarrassed to be here.
Are they supporting this legislation? Let us hear from them.
The reason so few Members are present is obvious. The Minister himself does not want to be here. I do not envy him the task he has been given of having to defend this amnesty. Everyone knows it is not his idea. The Taoiseach had a rush of blood to the head. I do not see how the Minister can defend it; I would go so far as to say that he should resign rather than take it on board. Everybody knows that this is a ridiculous notion that should never have been put forward. It is outrageous to suggest that we should entice tax cheats home and ask them for a paltry 15 per cent of the tax due on their ill-gotten gains. I know the Minister is an honourable man and would not live off their immoral earnings. He is realistic and does not think that this is a valid proposal. It has been put forward by the Taoiseach.
I am delighted that Deputy Cox has managed to get around all the obstacles to discussing this tax amnesty. It is appropriate that it is the first matter to be discussed in the debate on the Finance Bill. A sense of outrage is felt by people, perhaps not in Limerick but certainly in Dublin and the rest of the country. Perhaps the people know that the Labour Party will not listen to their complaints about this amnesty. It is not listening because it knows that the people are right and because of this it is not open to communication about this tax amnesty.
Deputy Cox has taken the right action and his amendment gives us the opportunity to voice the concerns of people. If Deputy Kemmy thinks that people have nothing to say about this amnesty all he has to do is answer the telephone. He will find out that they do. If the Minister cannot dump it, he should change it.
I am sympathetic to the Minister who, almost in isolation, has to listen to the representations inspired by people who have telephoned Members on this side of the House. It is obvious they do not telephone Members on the opposite side. The Minister must be annoyed. He must feel that the partnership Government is slightly one-sided in the sense that he and his colleague are the only Members on the Government benches.
A number of speakers have questioned the morality of this proposal. The people who are about to benefit from this amnesty are a powerful lobby. They are more powerful than the PAYE sector, small firms, the self-employed, old age pensioners and all those in need of community care and assistance through the health boards. Figures have been trotted out to market the proposal. At a time when so much emphasis is being placed on ethics in Government why should such a proposal be made? How does it stand with the proposal to introduce legislation dealing with ethics in Government? Is it ethical, for instance, that those who, for one reason or another, decided to siphon their ill-gotten gains out of the country, not by legal means, should be extended a warm welcome and the hand of friendship on their return and given a special concession which has not been offered to anybody else? Why is the same concession not made available to people with small businesses or to the PAYE sector for even one year? What have this group done right that entitles them to benefit while all others do not?
I find it very difficult to understand how either party in this partnership or Coalition Government — whichever name one wishes to call it; it depends on who happens to be describing it — has not had objections from constituents. The vast majority of people are asking the very salient question of why they should have to abide by the rules and regulations if a group which has circumvented the regulations can benefit. There is no incentive for people to proceed through the normal channels in future. Is this not encouragement also for people in the know or who have means to siphon money out of the country and locate it in bank accounts elsewhere? Is it not an incentive for them to continue to do so or to encourage others to do so? Is it not an incentive for people with access to funds to take their money out of the country happy in the knowledge that in three, four or five years time they will benefit from another amnesty? Why should they go through the normal channels when that option is available to them? That is the message that is coming across. Once that message gets to the community, public confidence in the institutions of State will breakdown, in fact that is happening.
Some Members said they had no telephone calls on this issue from constituents. I respectfully suggest that the reason no one has called is that people are now scared to use the telephones because of the increase in charges the Government has imposed. The people are furious that there is no benefit in making phone calls to members of either party in the partnership Government. They know the Government has such a majority at present that it is capable of forcing any legislation through this House at any time. In fact 36 Members from either of the two parties can stay at home any week or month or year and the Government can win every vote called here. The general public know that making telephone calls to members of either party in Government will be of little benefit. I respectfully suggest that Members should not place too much credence in the fact that they have not been receiving a continuous stream of phone calls because that is the reason.
The small business sector also think badly of this amnesty. When speaking on another issue in this House last week I said that people with small businesses see themselves as being the most vulnerable in the business sector simply because they are so small as not to be able to take on board the consultants and other administrative assistance that big business is able to pay for and is forced to pay for in any event. At the end of the line, they have to employ accountants and others which puts a huge administrative expense on them. If they do not employ these people, and many do not because of the cost, they receive letters from the sheriff because of their difficulties with meeting deadlines.
This week I spoke to people who received letters from sheriffs requesting payment of a certain sum of money. When the sheriff comes to collect there is also a penalty by virtue of the late payment. Those people read of the proposal from Government — to which I referred — to make a special sweetheart deal with a group who have not abided by the rules or regulations. Those people seem to think it is their preserve to do that as often as they wish. Yet the person with a small business has to face the music and is expected to toe the line every time. Surely there must be somebody in the Government parties who is prepared to speak for those people. Likewise, for the elderly who are in receipt of pensions and so on and the general taxpayers who are, this year, penalised further by the 1 per cent levy.
Many reasons were trotted out as to why the 1 per cent levy should be paid but, of course, the main reason is that the Government needs to get more money. The odd thing is that at the time the general public, the PAYE sector and the self-employed, big and small businesses everywhere are being penalised by an extra 1 per cent levy, the Government decides to offer a concession to our tax exiles if they haul home their ill gotten gains. We should remember that if they were able to move money from the country once there is no reason they would not be prepared or capable of moving the money out again.
Where is the Government's sense of fair play? The Government was supposed to be so open to suggestions, to be righteous and so open to fair play. We heard much about this earlier in the year. It must be possible for the Tánaiste and he Taoiseach to hold discussions so that even at this late stage, some modicum of fair play might be introduced into the system and stop this proposal.
I am sure the Government is aware that we, on this side of the House, are most concerned lest they damage their credibility even more. However, this will damage also the credibility of the institutions of the State, particularly those responsible for running the country and ensuring that taxes are collected within a specified and reasonable period. How does the Government expect those institutions to carry on in future? How does it expect them to operate if they have to give their imprimatur to a proposal which has been hatched and thatched on the far side of the House over the past month to six weeks? I am amazed that a certain group of people, who must be influential, have been able to get a proposal through Cabinet when more deserving groups have failed.
What about the people who feel aggrieved at the additional hospital service charges and so on? Obviously they are not part of the same lobby because if they were there would have been some concession from the Government. We heard much about the "dirty dozen" social welfare cuts that were to be repealed last year and various attempts have been made to manicure and patch them up in the recent past.
It was suggested by some people that as these were readily identifiable, repealing them would be an attainable goal within a specified period. How is it that nothing could be done in that regard in the Finance Bill?
What are the reasons for this proposal and why is it being introduced? One of my colleagues suggested that small benefits are promised — I do not know for what purpose or to what organisations — and that may be true; it is a possibility. For example, there are worthy causes to which a proposal of this nature can be attached for marketing purposes. Of course, we can say it could be used to defray hospital or other health charges or to supplement employment proposals and so on, all of which are very worthy. It could be used to increase social welfare payments to old age pensioners, the long term unemployed and so on but, of course, these have only been spoken about vaguely and the reason for that is because they are vague. There is no proposal to put the money to any particular use because nobody can readily determine how much is involved.
The Government parties can talk as long as they like, putting forward many reasons to justify their actions, but in the final analysis, whether they receive telephone calls and letters or not, there is a large group in society watching balefully. When the time is right they will extract their revenge on the Government if they proceed with this proposal.
I know everybody has sympathy for the Minister for Finance who is an honourable and fair-minded man.
There are one or two exceptions.
I have no doubt he finds it very difficult but in his usual political style I am sure he will be well able to handle it later on.
He is like the boy on the burning deck at present.
If the Taoiseach continues with these top of the head suggestions and bulldozes them through the Cabinet I do not think Deputy Ahern will be Minister for Finance for two long. Lest I should damage his chances, I will not give him any more praise. Praise from me is the last thing he needs. The Minister should continue to sit and wait because the wait may not be too long.
Much reference was made earlier to the role of the Labour Party in this matter. I was very disappointed with the intervention of Deputy Kemmy. By way of innuendo, he changed the tone of the debate. Somebody suggested we should keep it clean. Deputy Kemmy himself began by saying that. He then went on to talk about people fiddling their expenses, events in another party many years ago and so on. That shows that Deputy Kemmy is somewhat touchy. When this Government took office a few months ago Deputy Kemmy, almost before the ink was dry on the Government agreement, was out like a shot sending messages and instructing the Cabinet what they were to do if they were to get the support of the Labour Party. I do not know if it was because he was confused with Deputy Michael McDowell in his role in the Progressive Democrat Party in recent years that he suddenly retreated. Not only is he not sending messages as to what they should do to be compliant, to use the tax jargon, with the Labour Party philosophy but he seems to have capitulated totally. I have never seen anything like the transformation I have seen in Deputy Kemmy in recent times. I know why he is not getting any phone calls or any letters and if I were him I would be worried about that. Sometimes as politicians we exaggerate the amount of public opposition to something. If we get three of our letters that is often considered a fairly good indicator that there is a lot of concern. I can tell Deputy Kemmy — and I do not think I am too bad a political judge — I have never come across such opposition to any measure as I have encountered in relation to this amnesty. The opposition is not just from PAYE workers or social welfare recipients but from some of the most powerful business people. At the weekend I spoke with some bankers, people who are very practical and very realistic — if there is ever a way of raising money they are the first to suggest it — and they were outraged at this proposal. They told me how impractical it was. We will all have egg on our faces because we will have an amnesty that will not work because people will not avail of it, for a whole host of reasons.
I can do no better, in relation to this amnesty and my view on it, than to quote Barry Desmond, MEP. He was the Labour Party spokesperson on Finance in 1988 when we introduced the last amnesty. This was an amnesty whereby people would have to pay their full taxes; all they were allowed to forego was interest and the possibility of being prosecuted. This is what the former Deputy Desmond had to say in the Official Report of Wednesday, 20 April 1988, columns 1495 to 1497:
I want to refer now to the so-called major incentive provided by the budgetary tax amnesty. I am opposed to the relevant section of the Bill. In respect of those who pay their taxes on time, who have consistently paid their due and lawful taxes, indeed those who for one reason or another have not paid their taxes, who have been rightly caught for the payment of interest, caught by sheriff seizures — whatever transient sympathy we may have of them — who have been caught because they have not paid their taxes, who have been legitimately brought before the sheriff, the courts, caught for late payment of taxes, it is outrageous that overnight the Government should decide to issue a universal, general, amnesty of an extraordinary kind.
He goes on to say:
That is an extraordinary Government decision which is totally unacceptable on grounds of fundamental equity. In other words, those who have failed to pay their taxes, deliberately in many cases delayed paying them, who have an income which they deliberately concealed from the Revenue Commissioners, are now given an open-ended amnesty of extraordinary generosity.
... this handout to people who basically have not paid their taxes and who have undisclosed resources must certainly make tens of thousands of taxpayers feel irate...
... it is fundamentally wrong because in three years time people will be baying for another tax amnesty and perhaps a future Minister for Finance will reintroduce it. Once you go down that road, it is hard to stop in terms of administering an effective system ...
the subsequent Committee Stage of the Finance Bill the Labour Party put down an amendment to oppose that amnesty. However, section 72 of that Bill was never reached and it was never put to the House.
I find the comments of Deputy Kemmy this morning totally hypocritical. He used the word "hypocrisy" and I do not like to accuse people of hypocrisy. When the general election was over I was one of the first people to predict that it would be a Labour/Fianna Fáil Government. It was obvious. One only had to look at the body language of the Labour Party. I read in my newspaper last Saturday that apparently there was a show of hands in the Berkeley Court Hotel by ten of Mr. Spring's male advisers. They were split five all and he had to make up his mind whether to go with Fianna Fáil or with the Rainbow. Once the Labour Party went into the Government I could predict that, come hell or high water, they would be there for the four or four-and-a-half years. Let nobody be foolish enough to think that the Labour Party will pull out of Government. They will keep their heads down when it suits, as on this issue. They will keep their mouths shut and throw abuse at the Opposition. They will question people's motives but they will stay in Government because when they got their hands on power they are the last people to give it up. We only have to look at the appointment of programme managers and advisers in the first four months to see that. I understand, if newspaper reports are correct, that one of the strongest advocates of this amnesty is the Minister for Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Taylor. I find it extraordinary that the Minister, who represents the most marginalised constituency in our community, should be one of the people to push this at Cabinet level.
The Taoiseach is so Rambo-like that he can get his way regardless. I would assume he decided the amnesty was a good idea and, without any consideration, made it be known in the media that he was for it. He probably felt then he had no alternative but to push it through. I predict that if there is substantial opposition within the Government to this measure, if there is a breakdown of the consensus that is normally necessary for Government to function — and I saw the breakdown of that consensus and cohesion in the last Government — that is the beginning of the end of the cohesion and consensus needed for effective Government.
Deputy Cox's amendment is seeking a tax system that does not discriminate against particular classes and types of compliant taxpayers. If this were an amnesty whereby those retiring at the age of 55 would only have to pay 15 per cent on their pensionable income, I would support it. I would see it as a good idea to encourage people to leave jobs, thus providing them for other people and allowing greater mobility, particularly in the public service. This amnesty is designed to look after those who do not give a damn about this country and who have hoarded their money away. Some are concerned because they cannot bring it back to spend it. They are trapped. They bought their houses in the south of Spain or their apartments in Portugal. They pay for their holidays from their foreign bank accounts and so on. After that they are restricted because, thankfully, we have very efficient Revenue Commissioners. The Revenue sheriffs, in particular, have been extremely effective in getting money in. It is about time that we had an effective way of collecting tax. For too long many people did not pay their fair share.
It is interesting to note that the Minister has taken up 13 pages of this Finance Bill, sections 25 to 27, to lay down a whole host of conditions in relation to his investment incentive schemes for people in business, yet when it comes to the amnesty there are to be no conditions at all. My colleague, Deputy Rabbitte, referred to it as the 50-50 cash back. As a spokesperson with responsibility for justice, it worries me that there is a possibility that this country could be used to launder the proceeds of crime, committed not just in other jurisdictions but in this jurisdiction. It is a fact that crime pays. The assets of criminals are not seized. Many of them may have their accounts overseas, particularly drug pushers and those involved in racketeering and so on. Are they now to be allowed to bring that money back, to be free from any prosecution and to have to pay only 15 per cent on it? I find that an appalling suggestion. Would it be possible, for example, that the mafiosi referred to yesterday could bring in their money from Italy and Sicily, launder it through persons domiciled in the Republic and then take it back and spend it as they wish?
I would like to hear the Minister say that those people who avail of the amnesty will have to show that they earned this money by legitimate means. There is a lot of organised crime in this city. It is not an offence to pay protection money. People have paid protection money because their business might be burnt down or they might be kneecapped. I am appalled to think that money could now be brought in here and all that would have to be paid would be 15 per cent.
Many people have said that if we can get money let us get it at any cost. I do not subscribe to that view. That is akin to saying we should get the IRA to rob as many banks in the USA as they can and we will allow them to bring the money in here and pay only a small amount of tax on it. It would be extremely dangerous to go down that road. It would jeopardise our tax system and further alienate many people. It would bring the country into disrepute internationally. We all know how disturbing are the host of business scandals, the perception that there is a golden circle and that business is not straight in this country. We know how much attention it gets in foreign newspapers, particularly in papers like the Financial Times. It is extremely damaging to the reputation of Ireland. Rather than trying to change that, we are aiding it and abetting it by suggesting an amnesty of this kind.
I have often dealt with people in my own constituency, social welfare recipients who begin working one, two or three days a week as handymen, carpenters, or plumbers. They suddenly have enough work and would like to be honourable and declare themselves, and maybe pay back any illegitimate social welfare money on a phased basis, but they will not do so because they are afraid of being persecuted by the social welfare fraud squad. We have made great strides in the area of social welfare fraud. The Minister for Social Welfare brought in a number of measures a few years ago which I welcomed.
There has never been a suggestion that we should have an amnesty for people at that end of the scale who have defrauded the Department of Social Welfare of small amounts of money and who want to get out of the black economy and become legitimate. I do not think we have even explored it. Why not? It is because these people are not influential and have no clout. They would not be able to have a word in the Taoiseach's ear because he would probably never meet them and if he did he probably would not understand them. That is why I find this whole idea so appalling.
In our society there are many who believe that a two-tier system operates, whether it is before the courts, under the taxation code, or in business. There is one law for a small golden circle of people and another for the rest of the community. If some people can afford the expertise to fight their case, these can get a just reward. To a large extent justice depends on the amount of money one can put up to get it. The perception is that this is an unfair society. I know it because I hear it from so many of my constituents. If somebody in my constituency steals ten jumpers from Dunnes Stores, there is every chance they will be prosecuted and brought before the courts.
Recently we saw the Stokes, Kennedy, Crowley report on white collar fraud. Forty per cent of companies experience white collar fraud. Two per cent of the fraud is in relation to sums of over £1 million, and yet prosecutions have been taken in only 28 per cent of cases and there is a much lower level of successful convictions. Are we saying to those white collar criminals who may have taken £1 million plus from their company, who have put it in a foreign bank account in the Isle of Man, Jersey, Cyprus or whatever, that they can bring that money back and when they pay the Government 15 per cent they will be totally free of any prosecution? I find the idea absolutely revolting, as do so many people.
We have a tax system that requires the single person on two-thirds of the average industrial wage to pay the top rate of tax at 48 per cent. We are now going to give an amnesty to people who have millions. My prediction is that the only people who might bring back money are those who may have £50,000 to £80,000 and they will use it to buy a house or to give to their children. The guys with the big bucks who are involved in particular sectors of activity in this economy are not going to bring their money back, but they are worried about how they can get their hands on it to spend because they know now how effective the Revenue sheriffs are. If we still had inefficiency in revenue collection they would not have to worry about getting an amnesty because they would be well able to bring in sufficient quantities of money and nobody would ask any questions.
I have always had a lot of time for our public service. We have a very loyal and honourable public service and that is a good thing. It is particularly good at maintaining stability even when Governments change. The system does them a grave injustice because it does not encourage hard-working and enthusiastic public servants. I saw that clearly when I was at the Department of the Environment. The system is suited to mediocrity and that is a pity, but it is a different issue. It must be galling for decent, honourable public servants who are PAYE taxpayers to have to sit down and begin to draft offensive legislation of this kind, having sat up burning the midnight oil preparing for the Finance Bill. It must make them wonder why they should bother. It must make them question the kind of society, the kind of Government and the kind of system that they so loyally serve. They are often attacked and that is regrettable because they cannot answer for themselves. I can imagine the thoughts that must go through their minds when they have to do tasks of this kind.
The attitude adopted not just by the Labour Party but by many of the Fianna Fáil Members, although few of them have chosen to speak on this debate, seems to be that if we can get the money in it is a good thing. They are all presuming we are going to get the money in. I am no financial genius, and I want to compliment Deputy Cox on framing a very clever amendment to allow us to discuss this matter, but if somebody brings money back into the country under this amnesty, the Revenue Commissiones are going to know that he has this stream of income or certainly had it in the past. Although they may not hound him when the amnesty comes in because 15 per cent only has to be paid, what will happen next year and the year after? These are not innocent beings who do not know what is going on and do not know how the system works. These are, in the main, very well placed individuals who have plenty of advice at their disposal.
If the accountants that I have been talking to and the bankers I met only last Saturday are representative of the professions they come from, then the advice they will be giving their clients with large deposits in overseas accounts is to leave it where it is, that they would be mad to bring it in. That will leave many of the Labour Party and Fianna Fáil members who seem keen to defend this in a very difficult position. Will they still justify the legislation? Will they still say it was a good idea to have brought our tax system into disrepute, to have further alienated decent honourable people who are compliant? Let us be fair and admit that most people try to do their best. It is one thing to employ an accountant to see how one can minimise what one pays in income tax. That is very different from putting one's money offshore and avoiding payment of any tax at all or even acknowledging that the money exists in the first place.
There are loopholes in the present system. A new feature seems to be that many single people covenant money to their nieces and nephews and then get their AIM card and take it out of niece Mary's account and use it as their spending money. I know there is only £6 million in tax foregone. It is a small amount of money in comparison with other areas. I am told it is quite common for well-paid single people to enter into covenants of £4,000, £6,000 or £8,000. The amount of the covenant cannot exceed 15 per cent of their income. These covenants are intended to benefit their nieces, nephews and friends. It is in order for people to enter into a covenant with children under 18 other than their own children. Parents can enter into covenants with their children who are 18 or over. Well paid single people have decided to go down this road. Maybe the Minister should examine this area because if a covenant is entered into to help with education and genuine expenses the money should be left in the account. Nobody seems to check if the money is left in the account or how it can be withdrawn.
Deputy Kemmy seems to think that nobody in the Labour Party really cares about this issue that members have not contacted him. About two weeks ago I was travelling down the country to attend a wedding. I stopped to get petrol in Newbridge and I bought a copy of the Leinster Leader. An article on the front page of the paper stated that three officers of the Labour Party, the chairman, secretary, PRO of the Newbridge branch and several other ordinary members had resigned. The members were quoted in the article as saying that they resigned because they were fed up with the behaviour of the Labour Party in Government. That was about three or four days before we heard any word of the amnesty. If the Newbridge branch was fed up with what had happened prior to the amnesty, I am sure there will be many people who will be resigning from the Labour Party when they have time to digest the effect of the amnesty.
We have had a very long debate on this matter and I do not know when the Minister intends to speak. It would seem that the Opposition can continue this debate all day if they choose. I am not sure that is a good idea because we would like to hear the Minister acknowledge that he might not be enthusiastic about this but is part of a collective Cabinet Government system and he will have to bat with it as best he can. Members of the House look forward to hearing the Minister. Perhaps he would indicate when he would like to speak. People would be prepared not to continue the debate if they thought the Minister was eager to speak and offer his opinion.
Deputy Cox's amendment, contrary to what Deputy Kemmy seemed to think, introduces into the Finance Bill a provision that will ensure there is no discrimination against various classes and kinds of taxpayers and that, in particular, those who do not pay their fair share of tax or do not declare their income are not given what is, in effect, almost the equivalent of a golden handshake. The Government by introducing this tax amnesty is doing a great disservice to this community, not just to PAYE taxpayers but to business people. Many business people have told me that when one starts one's own business one quickly comes in contact with officals of the Revenue Commissioners who wish to discover if you have complied with the laws. Rather than State agencies contacting business people and helping them set up businesses and employ others, State agencies almost hound people out of business before they get off the ground. Many fine people in business who try hard in difficult circumstances to be good citzens, to be as compliant as possible, who used the amnesty introduced by the 1988 Act to clear up their tax affairs would probably now put amounts of £20,000, £30,000 or £50,000 offshore because in five or six years time there will be another amnesty and they will be able to avail of that. They will adopt the attitude that they will take the chance, like those people who have £2 billion offshore at present. They will consider themselves part of a circle of people and will consider if those people have not been caught they will not be caught either. If those people have been rewarded they will perhaps be rewarded too.
The Minister should use his influence to convince the Taoiseach, who seems to be the main author of this unfortunate proposal, to see the error of his ways before it is too late and before this Bill is published next week or two, before the ethics Bill. Governments can and often do retract decisions they have made. Rather than lose face the Taoiseach would go up in people's estimation if, having examined the proposal more fully and having seen the reaction, he withdrew this proposal. If we are a democracy and if that means anything, then surely we should have regard to the views of citizens right across the social classes, the different professional groups, the self-employed, PAYE people and so on. The Taoiseach should rethink and withdraw this crazy proposal before further damage is done to this country's reputation.
On a point of order, Deputy Harney asked a reasonable question. I can only speak once on this issue on Report Stage and then Deputy Cox has a right to reply. When the other speakers on your list, Chairman, have contributed I will speak and then Deputy Cox has a right to reply. That is what I have been waiting for since 4.20 p.m. yesterday.
The Minister is very patient.
We have been waiting since budget day, 27 February, to hear the Minister.
This debate must conclude by 6.45 p.m. this evening. There are 170 amendments still to be dealt with. I ask Deputies to be brief in their contributions.
This is a key issue. It is regrettable there is such a short space of time to debate it. I was not in the House when Deputy Kemmy said that nobody had contacted him about the matter but it is not my experience that this amnesty is being treated lightly by the public. Maybe people did not contact Deputy Kemmy because they were so stunned by his approach and thought he had lost his wits totally in regard to the arguments he made. No sound economic arguments have been presented by the Government to defend or explain the tax amnesty. The Minister for Finance, in an uncharacteristic way, has maintained the stoney silence. That, in itself, speaks volumes. The Taoiseach, in his usual insensitive way, could not understand what all the fuss was about and seemed to be puzzled when it was pointed out to him that there was considerable anger in the country and people were very cross at the arrogance and injustice of this proposal.
Deputy Kemmy put forward the "if" argument, that "if" we get this money back it would be beneficial to the economy. There is no evidence that we will get large sums of money back. The only benefit would be the paltry 15 per cent that would be levied on it. There is no guarantee that any of the money, not a whit of it, would be invested in any productive purposes. Depending on the same treacherous people who starved this country of funds in the first instance is a poor way to plan an economic recovery. When we needed money it was invested abroad to make a good profit. There was no question then of ensuring that people did their bit for Ireland. While listening to the debate I was reminded of a short story by Frank O'Connor entitled The Cornet Player who Betrayed Ireland”. The story we have today could be entitled “The Tax Fiddler who Betrayed Ireland” because we have been betrayed by those people. The people who have suffered the effects of cutbacks have been betrayed by those tax fiddlers and we should never forget that. Emigrants, the true exiles, are abroad trying to make a living with an inadequate education. They experience difficulties because they do not have the resources of family networks and the familiarity of dealing with their own territory.
In recent times the homeless have been forgotten about. We had a recent experience in the Eastern Health Board region where strike action was taken because the issue of homelessness had shifted and slipped off the agenda and the necessary resources were simply not there. The Government, when it finally formed, made commitments to the homeless, the people who literally do not have a roof over their heads, but that commitment has fallen far short of the reality. The reality is that the people who paid the price were those who found themselves homeless, living in over crowded and substandard conditions, who suffered in all sorts of ways by reason of Government cutbacks over the years, cutbacks which, it was argued, were necessary to prevent taxes increasing further but which were imposed not because of people not paying their taxes but because the fiddlers were able to send their money abroad in suit cases. The price was paid by the unemployed, those who could not get work here, who were wasting their talents, their potential and their youth because the jobs did not exist to enable them fulfil their rightful potential.
Entrepreneurs, also, have suffered. Many young or new entrepreneurs do not have large resources behind them but have good ideas and goodwill and want to bring those ideas to fruition. They have been hampered over the years and unable to create the jobs to provide the kind of social commitment they were willing to make. That was because they could not comply with the rigid conditions laid down by the banks for borrowing money, and because the whole exercise was too expensive. We should not forget those people now that those who, it might be said, betrayed them, who betrayed Ireland, are to have presented to them on a plate an amnesty we can ill afford.
The most likely effect of a tax amnesty of this type is that if money is brought back into the country it will be used for speculation on the property market. It would be ludicrous to expect that people who invested in order to obtain a good return on their money would somehow change their spots and suddenly put their money in sound, productive investments. I participated in a television programme the other evening with the Minister for Social Welfare who put forward the notion that somehow this would happen. There is no evidence whatsoever that it would happen. In fact, all the evidence would indicate that the likely investment would be in the Mespil Estate type deal, the quick buck type investment that we seem to encourage and enable people to avail of so easily. Those who have taken their money out of the country, who have never invested in Ireland, in the people of Ireland or in the future of Ireland, who have done everything to prevent the kind of investment that is so vital to our future, should not be rewarded as is the intention so far as this amnesty is concerned.
The argument that an amnesty would reduce taxes is also a nonsense. The reason the PAYE sector has been effectively screwed over the years — and the screw has been tightened as time goes on — is because people like these tax dodgers were not paying their way. That is why the PAYE sector has been carrying an increasing burden when you take into account both PAYE and PRSI. It is a massive burden that has been borne by a specific group of people who were trapped in a manner in which the super rich have never been trapped.
The Joint General President of SIPTU referred to this tax amnesty as a tax break for tax dodgers. It is adding insult to injury that the amnesty is being proposed at a time when those people who are paying their taxes have had imposed on them an additional 1 per cent so called "temporary" levy. The public do not believe it is a temporary measure, they do not believe it is right and they certainly do not believe it is justified when, with the other hand, the Government is presenting a gift to the very wealthy tax dodger. There is clearly one law for the tax compliant citizen and a more flexible, more lax and more favourable law for the super rich. The law abiding citizen must pay his or her taxes but the super rich can move their money around in order to avoid paying any tax whatsoever.
I wonder if those who voted for the Labour Party in the last election would have done so if they had been told that they were voting for a 1 per cent increase in their income tax and a tax amnesty that will present the rich with an opportunity to benefit enormously from the most preferential tax rate in the system. One must ask, too, whether members of trade unions, the workers who are paying taxes but who also, through their levies, pay for Labour Party candidates at election time — we know that a considerable amount of money was diverted from the trade unions to Labour Party funds to ensure there were Labor Party Deputies elected — feel they obtained good value for that investment?
There was a SIPTU conference recently and so far as I am aware not one Labour Party Deputy was in attendance.
They were probably not invited.
This amnesty must be set in the larger context of the atmosphere that has built up over a number of years in Ireland. We have been breathing the scandal ridden air for so long there is a danger that we have become used to it, used to the contamination that still lingers despite the fact that at the last general election people clearly wanted change. The Labour Party said they would clean up Fianna Fáil. Many people wanted the system cleaned up, wanted a fresh start but the background of scandals is, unfortunately, a part of what is taking place at the moment, it is meshed in with the compliance that exists in relation to non payment of tax by those who can afford to pay it.
We have had a series of amnesties in the past which enabled the rich to benefit while the PAYE sector, who were never afforded an amnesty, continued to shell out week by week. I must say this particular tax amnesty has a whole new quality and edge to it that the previous amnesties did not have. It is wide open and is extraordinary in its beneficence. When one adds this particular amnesty to the general litany of scandals in the business sector it is helping to create a sense of disillusion, cynicism and frustration among the general public. If one reflects on the various scandals of the past few years they amount to quite a few including the ICI-AIB scandal in 1985 where there was a collapse and the State had to pick up the tabs to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds. We had the Irish Life-Mespil Flats scandal where vulnerable elderly people were put in fear of their life by a consortium of individuals who were given special concessions and arrangements simply because they had money.
There is also the Irish Permament Building Society scandal, the First National Building Society scandal and Greencore, where senior executives bought out a subsidiary company and then sold it at a hugely inflated price. Again the people on the street who were struggling to survive and to make a go of life were, in effect, being marginalised and abused. There is a problem relating to insider trading within the Irish Stock Exchange, yet we do not have the mechanisms in place to deal with scams and illegal activities in relation to the stock market. Even at local authority level, Dublin County Council has become a joke because of the planning scandals. Recent experiences have shown that councillors felt they could somehow operate on the basis of their personal needs and attitudes rather than reflecting any larger social good or any attempt at proper planning. It was a great credit to the individual people and communities of County Dublin, who exerted such an enormous amount of pressure, that this matter was brought to a head. The steamroller that has been operating in Dublin County Council for so long is beginning to look rusty and is creaking at the joints.
I ask the Deputy to adhere to the amendment under discussion.
The tax amnesty is the most recent in the litany. Comparison was made with other amnesties, for example, a social welfare amnesty was introduced some time ago whereby people who were outside the system were able to make reparation. They were punished in that they had to make up for what they had done. The idea of making reparation now seems to be lost. Maybe it is an old-fashioned idea but certainly the super rich are outside that whole concept. If we are going to give the rich a chance to come back into the system, to bring their money back and we will forgive and forget, let us treat everybody in the same way. Let us show the same generosity to those living on social welfare who because payments are so low and restrictive cannot afford to rear their family and provide for all their needs and therefore have to work in the black economy. These people feel trapped and are unable to escape the black economy. Will an amnesty be introduced for such individuals who may feel bad about what they are doing but who see no way out of it?
We should consider putting in place other amnesties if we are going to be so generous. I wonder whether the country will be able to continue functioning if we adopt the same approach to other groups as we are adopting to the super rich. In all fairness, the Minister should look at ways to encourage people in the black economy to come back into the system without making reparation or having any penalty imposed on them. Maybe we should encourage them by providing sweeteners for them as we are providing for the super rich.
The Revenue Commissioners are against this amnesty, as are tax collectors' unions and the main trade union body, but the Government that has the largest majority in the history of the State supports it. That is an indication of a serious deficiency at the heart of this Government. It is a lack of political vision that has led to this proposal. I have been only six months in this House and I have had to learn a lot, but the one thing that shocks me is the vacuum which exists at the heart of Government. It lacks the vision so desperately sought at the last election. There is no understanding of what it is like to be unemployed, to look forward with no hope. Many people hoped that after the general election there might be some change or surge forward, some break with the past so that a fresh start could be made. However, that has not happened, rather a tax amnesty has been proposed.
The recent budget was an abject failure in terms of introducing a fairer tax system. I do not think people expect miracles overnight. The general public is very sophisticated. They understand that as a nation we face difficult problems that are to an extent effected by the fact that we have a very young population and a high dependency rate. People do not expect the Government to work miracles but I do not think they expected it would come forward with a proposal that would benefit the rich and penalise the poor. That in effect has been Government policy since the budget, with the introduction of the dirty dozen cuts and now this proposed tax amnesty.
Deputy Kemmy said this morning that he did not receive phone calls on this matter. I do not think that is how a Deputy relates to his or her constituents. The way to relate to constituents is by being with them, listening to and understanding what is said, although not always directly. There may not be a clear-cut demand to get rid of the tax amnesty; it may relate to people's fears about their children or indeed their elderly parents, how they view the way Irish society has changed. Many people are fearful of change, which is understandable — the older you get the more fearful you become. Genuine disillusionment must be distinguished from natural conservatism that grows with age. I am not talking about natural conservatism; I am talking about genuine personal fears.
We live in a society where the basic decent principles are being continually eroded. That is the nub of this tax amnesty. It will erode basic human values that people want to see sustained and enriched by Government rather than distorted, eroded and sneered at. The same attitude is taken to this proposal as that taken by Ms. Hemsley in America, that "only little people pay taxes". However in America, the great land of the free and the home of the brave, that woman is back behind bars. In Ireland nobody is behind bars for tax evasion. Little people pay taxes here, that is what the Government is telling the people. It is not saying that everybody should pay their fair share, make a commitment and understand that we all need each other to make progress which will benefit rich and poor alike.
This amnesty is separating the rich from the poor. It will benefit the rich, not the poor. It is an extension of the cute hoorism, the golden circle, the nods and winks politics with which people have associated Fianna Fáil. One thing we have learned from this tax amnesty is that this attitude is no longer associated only with Fianna Fáil; it is now associated with the Labour Party. That party is arguing the case for a tax amnesty that undermines human values.
At the beginning of my contribution I said that no sound economic arguments have been presented by the Government in relation to this amnesty. It is interesting that the Deputies who I thought would be in this Chamber arguing the case are cowering in their offices. There is no press conference, no good news and no occasion to feel good in relation to this matter. There are no photo opportunities. Why are people cowering away from this Chamber when they should be in here defending the Government and the Minister and arguing the case? A pathetic excuse was put forward by Deputy Kemmy. That is an insult to all the good decent people who put their trust in him and in the Labour Party to represent them. They are being sneared at as the little people.
Last night I attended a meeting of the urban district council in my area, at which this question of the tax amnesty was raised. The item on the agenda for discussion was homelessness in the town of Bray where 329 families are homeless or looking for housing. These people live in substandard inadequate accomodation, with overcrowded conditions, yet the vast majority of them have no chance of getting a house this year. The income of most of the people on our housing list is less than £5,000 per year.