It is not often that a Minister is asked in either House of the Oireachtas to increase the number of civil servants, but I must say straightway that I join with Senator Hayes in the tribute he has paid to the Revenue Commissioners. They are a very hard-worked body of civil servants—a body that has considerably more to do than previously —and many of them are overworked. It is, however, a very specialised job and it is one that cannot be dealt with in the way of recruitment just by saying that you require additional staff and getting them the next day. It is highly skilled technical work.
I should like to avail of this opportunity, however, to underline another thing which was said by Senator Hayes. It is an undoubted fact that, no matter how hard the Revenue Commissioners may endeavour to ensure that every citizen pays his just dues, there are people in the country who do evade their legal liability. I am not talking at all of whether one class should or should not be taxed or whether we should amend the law so as to relieve one section of the community and perhaps put additional burdens on another section. I am talking of the law as it is and there is unfortunately abroad amongst our people—not amongst all of them by any means, and perhaps not amongst the majority of them, but amongst a section of our people—the feeling that, if they have avoided paying their legal liability to income-tax, they have done something clever. I think that the first step that must be taken is not so much that for the Revenue Commissioners—they are, if one may use the analogy, the policemen—but to try to encourage amongst our own people a sufficient sense of moral responsibility that they should pay the burdens which their own public representatives, as the properly authorised Government of the country, decide should be paid. If that were done and if people did not avoid their just responsibilities, it would be possible to make substantial concessions to those who are at present discharging their obligations. If a substantial number of our people do not discharge their obligations, it merely means that a heavier burden is being placed on those who do, and it should be the aim of everybody in any public position to ensure that the national morality of payment of the taxes due to the State be advocated.
So far as the question of the amendment of the law itself is concerned, I made it clear in the other House and I do not want to weary the Seanad with a repetition of what I said. Unlike Senator Hawkins, if I may say so, I do not want to play the record again and again. The record which Senator Hawkins played has been repeated in the other House on many occasions and at the crossroads, and the Senator's Party during the recent local elections, at which they lost seats substantially all over the country, got their reply from the people. There are certain facts, however, that it would be well to consider.
Senator McGuire referred to the incidence of income-tax in regard to industrial enterprise. There is at present, as everybody knows, a commission sitting to consider that problem. I will, I believe, receive the report of that commission in the near future, and, when I do receive it, I shall naturally give it the most careful considerations, but we have to consider all these problems not merely as a separate section in regard to income-tax, but as part of the general overall national position. I must confess, however—perhaps my understanding is at fault— that I did not understand Senator McGuire's reference when he said he wanted to create a condition in which people could put their savings into loans and into private enterprise.
I can see no reason whatever, no matter what Government may be in power, either a Government from this side or that side, why any of our people should have the slightest anxiety about putting their savings into loans or into the development of private enterprise. We are a private enterprise economy, and we are likely to remain such, and, as a private enterprise economy, anyone can feel absolutely assured that, no matter what Government may be in power, the savings invested in private enterprise will have as full and as ample an opportunity of developing here in Ireland as they would get anywhere else. I will go further and say that not merely will they have that full and ample development here at home, but in that development they will not merely be helping themselves but helping the country as a whole. I should like to take the advantage of the opportunity which Senator McGuire's remark has given me to stress that, and to stress that it will be with that aim, that object and that principle in front of my mind that I shall in due course, later this year, examine the report of the Commission on Industrial Taxation.
Senator Hayes and Senator Cox mentioned the question of surtax. There has been for many years consideration given at various times to whether it was desirable to have a separate surtax charge or a graduated income-tax. The problem has never been ultimately determined, but I do not think that it was that was so much in their minds as the rates they would have to pay. The figure of £1,500 is a very low figure at which surtax should commence, but there is, of course, the knowledge to all of us that everyone, no matter what section or class in the community he may belong to, has to make now a greater contribution to the services provided by the State than might have been possible some 30 years ago when far fewer services were provided.
It is because of the necessity to make that additional provision that we have taxation and it is perhaps because of that necessity over the years that the personal allowances for income-tax, to which Senator Fearon referred on the Second Stage and which I had not sufficient time to mention, were not increased as the value of money diminished. These are all problems which must be considered in the light of a review of our general taxation, and of income-tax in particular, and of industrial taxation also so as to ensure that the best incentive is given to our people to produce results and to produce them as cheaply and as efficiently as possible.