I move:—Section 16, sub-section (2), page 9, line 9, to delete the words "seven-pence" and to substitute therefor the words "sixpence." The object of the amendment is to give some slight relief to the ratepayers of the City of Dublin in regard to the tax of eightpence which was discussed on the Second Reading of the Bill. On that occasion I put forward objections to the continuation of this tax and pointed out that some years ago the Corporation of Dublin decided not to collect it for the British Government on the principle that taxation should include representation. If that argument was correct, then I contend that it is much stronger now that the two police forces are to be amalgamated. Having regard to what the Minister said yesterday, it seems to me that the advantages of the amalgamation are altogether for the benefit of the country. We do not breed all our criminals in the City of Dublin. As far as the Minister went yesterday he objected to doing away with the tax altogether, but admitted the right of removing it. Under the Bill it will be removed year by year, being reduced by one penny in the £ until it is eliminated altogether. The Minister was not disposed to accept my view of the case but I appeal to him to go halfway. The object of the amendment is that the four years of Purgatory as it was alluded to in the other House, should be taken away; that is, doing away with the eightpenny tax in four years instead of in eight.
SEANAD IN COMMITTEE. - POLICE FORCES AMALGAMATION BILL, 1925.—COMMITTEE STAGE.
I oppose the amendment. Dublin has, I think, already got very favourable treatment from the Government, but it now wishes to get all the advantages. If this penny tax for the police is taken off Dublin it will be put on the country. I do not think that is reasonable. In a short time the extra tax for police will disappear in Dublin. There is a very efficient police force in Dublin, but I do not see why the country should be asked to pay a dwindling tax for it. The whole scheme was carefully thought out as well as the capacity of the country to bear the tax, so that I am sure the Minister and his advisers took everything into consideration. I do not think in the interests of the country that the Bill should be altered, and I oppose the amendment.
I support the position taken up by Senator Bennett. I think the fact that a sum of £52,000 a year is to be taken off Dublin and placed on the rest of the country is a matter to which we should object. This provision is the very least that we can consent to, considering that they will be relieved from paying this large sum after a certain time. I therefore object to the amendment.
I wish to support the amendment, which I think is a perfectly fair one. There is no reason at all that I can see why this extra tax should be placed on the people of Dublin. Some people in country places seem to think that Dublin ought to bear the whole taxation of Ireland. I think they are paying half of it at present, and that is quite as much as they can bear; in fact, a great deal more than they can reasonably bear. This tax seems to me an exaction that ought not to be borne. If the police are to be amalgamated, I think the most reasonable thing would be to have them paid out of the Central Fund, as one body of police have been paid. There was some excuse as long as the Dublin Metropolitan Police were a distinct body. For the last thirty years the people of Dublin and their representatives have groaned under this tax as a bad tax, not a constitutional tax, and I do not think it is a constitutional tax. Now that all the police are to be fused into one body, I think the time has come when that body ought to be paid out of the Central Fund.
The same point was put forward yesterday, and it was met by the Minister with what appeared to me to be a very sound argument, that is to say, that the amount of police protection given to the city of Dublin was out of proportion to that given to the rest of the country and its population. That argument applies equally to this amendment. Senator O'Farrell yesterday pointed out the inefficiency of the police. Whether the numbers are not sufficient or whether the police are not as effective as they might be, the fact is that this city under present conditions requires more policing than any other part of the country. I do not want to put forward this suggestion lightly, but I think it might be considered by the Minister as to how he may double the efficiency of the present police force by a very simple device, and that is, by giving them rubber soles to their boots.
I hope that the House understands the actual effect of the amendment. It does not propose to remove the tax in one stroke. The Bill as it stands removes the tax at the rate of a penny in the £ per annum or £6,250 per year. The amendment simply seeks to accelerate that by 100 per cent., that is, to remove the impost at the rate of £12,500 a year and to distribute that over the whole country. Over the whole country it would be infinitesimal. It is a matter of some moment for the city, and I think it is a fairly reasonable compromise in respect of a tax which, logically speaking, should never have been imposed, seeing that the Corporation had never any control over the police. It is true that this city, like every large city, requires a bigger proportion of police than the rural areas because the great congregation of people give opportunities for the commission of crime that are not afforded in country districts, and it must be remembered that if there is a criminal in any part of the country whose position becomes rather uncomfortable, the logical place for him to drift to is Dublin. So that really what Dublin gets is police to watch the abnormal numbers of criminals who come into it and who would be more easily detected in country areas, and it would be very illogical and unjust to say that Dublin should have to pay for protecting life and property from these criminals, who would be run to earth if they remained in the country. I think that the amendment is exceedingly reasonable. I thought we would have had one to wipe out the impost at once, but this merely seeks to accelerate the pace, and under it for four years to come Dublin would continue to pay something above what the rest of the country pays for police protection.
As a mere provincial, I repel the insinuation of the last speaker that all our criminals gravitate to Dublin. We keep our own share at home and we pay for them, unfortunately. By reason of the Central Government, the two Houses of the Oireachtas, and a great many other attractions being here, people come to Dublin, where they spend money. There is something to be said on the side of the amendment, as I dare say there is something to be said of the advantage which Dublin gains, yet as this is a diminishing tax which has been paid up to the present, I think that there is really no reason for the opposition to it.
It seems to me quite logical that if the tax is to be abolished at the end of eight years it should be reduced now. If it is fair to do it at the end of eight years, it must be fair to do it now, or else the Minister is bringing in something that would be unfair at the end of eight years. That seems to me to be common sense. Moreover, there is no doubt that Dublin supports a great number of the poor, the insane and the sick, who drift into it for all sorts of reasons, and the city has to pay taxes in respect of them. I do think that this provision in the Bill is unfair. I am outside the city, so that I speak without any interest in the matter one way or another, but I like to be fair, and I think it is only fair that Dublin should be relieved, at all events a little more quickly than is proposed in the Bill.
I understood from the debate yesterday that Dublin employed 18 per cent. of the police force of the country and only paid for 15 per cent. Under those circumstance I think that they are getting out fairly well.
Some Senators imagine that Dublin gets its police for nothing. Under the present proposal Dublin will be paying its quota of the National Revenue out of which the police are paid, and in addition to doing that the Dublin ratepayers will be taxed on the valuation of their property an additional 8d. in the pound, diminishing by one penny in the pound per year. Eightpence in the pound is a very heavy burden for Dublin to bear. I hope that Senators from the country do not imagine that we are trying to steal anything from them, because we are not; we are simply saying that the Dublin citizen pays his fair quota towards the national revenue for the upkeep of the police as a whole, and that in addition he should not be compelled to pay this tax. This question is not a new one: it has been discussed in the city for many years, and under the old regime the Dublin Corporation refused absolutely to strike the rate. The Government, of course, had the power in their hands to collect it from the grants-in-aid and other money that the Corporation were entitled to receive from Government sources towards sanatoria treatment, and things of that description. I hope that the Minister will accept the amendment and relieve the ratepayers of the city of some of the enormous burden which they have to bear.
The relative criminality of residents of Dublin and residents of rural areas is an interesting question and one that I could speak on at length if I thought that it intimately concerned the amendment. I do not think it has very much to do with the amendment, and I do not think we need enter on that by-path at all. I am not defending the principle of this rate. On the contrary, the proposal is for its gradual diminution and ultimate disappearance, but I did put the view that the proposal in the Bill was reasonable, that to take off here and now the burden of £52,000 per annum was rather too much to expect from the National Exchequer. This rate has existed for over half a century, I think, and they are asked to bear it on a diminishing scale for a further eight years. The service, as I say, will remain the same. The personnel will not be changed. The existing Dublin police are given tenure in the metropolitan area, and this rate will have disappeared in eight years. I was not impressed by Senator Colonel Moore's logic that if it is right that this rate should disappear at the end of the eighth year, it is right that it should disappear now. It is not so much a question of abstract right as a question of concrete administrative convenience and practicability. I submit that the proposal in the Bill is a fair one. It is a reasonable one. To put it plainly, it is the best bargain I was able to drive with the Minister for Finance, and I have not any hope that by the passing of this amendment I will be fortified to drive any better bargain. If this amendment is passed, it will be simply refused. I do not know if the Senator adverted or not to the fact that the amendment imposes a charge on the Exchequer, and in the Dáil, at any rate, motion having that direct effect and consequence are moved only by the occupants of a particular bench. It is an easy thing always, and occasionally a pleasant and a popular thing, to put down motions involving large expenditure and imposing burdens on the Exchequer. It is neither so easy nor so popular to find the money to meet all the charges, and perhaps that is why the rule and practice is to confine the power of imposing burdens on the National Exchequer to those who have also the responsibility of collecting the wherewithal.
As I say, I took up this matter with the Minister for Finance, and I was met to this extent, that this rate will disappear after a period of eight years. It will disappear on a sliding, diminishing scale, and I think it is not an unreasonable proposal. Yesterday I pointed out that in Dublin you have 18 per cent. of the police personnel of the country, although in the matter of population there is only 13 per cent., and in the matter of valuation 15 per cent. Eighteen per cent. of the police of the country is concentrated here in the capital. Senator O'Farrell suggested yesterday that it was not highly efficient, and that some middle-aged station sergeant regretted to him that the recruits were not as good as they used to be, and that the same material was not coming forward. Senator O'Farrell has enough knowledge of the world to know that we have never been as good as our parents, that we have been degenerating since the days of Adam, and that this middle-aged station sergeant was speaking the absolute truth when he said the young men coming into the force were not as good as they were when he joined. The Senator should have taken that with a pinch of salt, and I am surprised he took it sufficiently seriously to pass it on to his fellow-Senators. I would urge the Seanad not to accept Senator Nesbitt's amendment, I could not hold out any hope at all that it would be accepted by the Minister for Finance or by the Government, and the net result of it would be merely to delay the date at which this Bill—which is a useful Bill, and a Bill that I believe will make for more sound and more efficient administration—will become law.
Might I ask that some Senator would move that the year 1924 be deleted in the title and that the year 1925 be substituted therefor.
AN CATHAOIRLEACH
I will put that as a Government amendment.