Let me answer Senator Sheehy Skeffington's question before I deal with the other matters to which I wish to refer. I have not suggested anywhere that any article that is not included in this list is thereby an essential. The list was framed in relation to those articles which are not so essential, but bearing in mind all sorts of other factors which arise in regard to them.
This debate, which started yesterday, has covered a fairly wide field. I had frankly hoped that it would have been carried on on a more general level than it was, to some degree at any rate. I had hoped we would have discussed on a more general basis the measures that I brought to the Dáil last week, in the light of the general economic position of the country. While some Senators did undoubtedly take that line, others did not. I can understand, of course, the difficulty for Senators who do not get the opportunity we have in the Dáil of dealing with individual and detailed Estimates, since this is one of the few opportunities they have of raising these matters.
At the same time, I can remember coming in here some 13 years ago, on the first occasion on which I sat in this House. There was either a Central Fund Bill or an Appropriation Bill before the House and I must confess I was rather tempted to follow the line Senator Sheehy Skeffington took of raising all sorts of individual items. But, after I had been here a few years, I found that was not the right method of dealing with debate in the Second Chamber.
For that reason I am not now going to answer some of the more detailed points raised. I shall deal with them later by means of correspondence rather than take up time replying to them now. I would, however, like to refer to some of the details which are more or less of general rather than specific application, as was the school in Finglas to which the Senator referred.
Reference was made to the fact that in the item in the Book of Estimates under public works and buildings the sum shown for maintenance and supplies for the Department of Finance is considerably greater than it is for any other Department. That, of course, is because we, in the Department of Finance, have responsibility for all the parks, all the State harbours, all the offices of the Revenue Commissioners, national monuments, and so on. It is not merely a matter of the maintenance and supplies for Government buildings; the item covers a very much wider sphere of activity indeed.
I was also asked to deal with Secret Service. Now, if I deal with Secret Service, it will be no longer secret. The Dáil, in its wisdom, passes every year a Vote, and, in passing that Vote, the Dáil dispenses the Government of the day from giving any information to it, or to the Oireachtas as a whole, as to the manner in which the amounts shown are expended. Suffice it for me to say that they are unquestionably disbursed in the public interest, and if the Senator is, as I think he said he was, somewhat curious, I am afraid he will have to wait to satisfy his curiosity, until the day he will happen to sit in this seat or in a similar one.
I disagree categorically with the Senator when he suggests that civil servants should be allowed to enter politics. I think it is infinitely better that we should have here a nonpolitical Civil Service, free, therefore, and untrammelled, to serve successive Governments and to be, therefore, a permanent Civil Service. If you are going to have a Civil Service free to enter politics, inevitably you move from that to the American system, by virtue of which the Civil Service changes to a large degree with each change of Government. I think that would be a mistake. All Parties and all Governments in the State have been extremely well served by the non-political Civil Service we have here, and I think it would be a very great mistake to alter that. Certainly, so long as I am in this office, I will strongly oppose any such alteration.
Senator Walsh referred also to a couple of matters of general interest, one of which was the reduction in the Transition Development Fund sub-head of the Local Government Estimate from £100,000 to £5. The Transition Development Fund was wound up as from 1st November, 1950, but without prejudice to the commitments that had been entered into before that date. The commitments are gradually being exhausted, and the requirements that were met otherwise on that Vote in respect of local authority building are now met in a different way. The nominal sub-head is provided just in case there should be some commitments still to come since 1950.
The Senator also asked what was the position in respect of the hospital building programme. The position in that respect is that the Hospitals' Trust Fund is not adequate to cope with the building programme, and we have, therefore, in these Estimates to provide an additional subvention, the additional subvention this year being somewhat less than before. The decrease arises, first, because, I am glad to say, through the success of the sweeps, the fund itself is being fed to a greater degree out of sweepstake proceeds. In addition to that, the building progress has not been as speedy as was anticipated and the Estimate is drawn to a much greater reality this year than was the position in the past when the amount voted was not expended.
When I was introducing this Bill in the House, Senators who were here will remember I said that, as far as the G.N.R. was concerned, I felt I could not give a final verdict on the amount that would be needed for the board, until the accounts for that board close on the 30th September next. I am afraid that is the situation.
Senator Hartney referred to the cost of the acquisition of land for forestry purposes. We must remember, in respect of forestry, that we have to try to strike a nice balance as between the land that is usable for forestry purposes and for agricultural purposes, and, if there was not some restriction in the amount to be paid for forestry land, we might very easily find ourselves in the position of utilising for forestry purposes land which would make a better contribution to the nation as a whole as ordinary agricultural land, and find also that land capable of being utilised only for forestry was not being used. The Senator will note that, in the Estimate this year, a sum of approximately £250,000 more than last year is being provided for forestry development. I do not think he can have had advertence to that fact, when making his criticism in that respect.
The total of the Estimates Volume is some £3,600,000 up and, if we exclude capital services, on which there is a reduction of a little over £1,000,000, the total amount provided for non-capital services is increased by approximately £4,750,000. As I said when introducing the Estimates, £3,500,000 of that increase is necessary for the Civil Service, for the Guards, for the Army, for postmen, etc. There is an increase of £971,000 for health grants to health authorities. There is over the Estimate for this time last year, which is the figure with which I was comparing the £4,750,000, an additional sum of £890,000 for old age pensioners. There is an addition of £250,000 for the agricultural grant; an addition for forestry, to which I already referred, and there is an addition, to which Senator Stanford referred, for university grants. All those things amount to an addition of approximately £6,000,000, so to speak, to be met on current account.
I think when we take into account the fact that the Estimates had to be increased—that it was desirable that the Estimates should be increased— to that amount, namely, £6,000,000, the fact that the Government have been able to come to the Oireachtas with Estimates reduced by a sum of £1,000,000 from that £6,000,000 is a very great achievement indeed, and shows that, in the scrutiny of the bill that was being presented, the pruning knife was utilised fairly strongly.
Senator Hawkins made a speech, which, according to the rules of order, Sir, I cannot say was deliberately misleading, but which was certainly recklessly inaccurate in many, many respects. I do not propose to traverse all the ground that he traversed; nor do I propose to traverse all the ground that Senator Cogan traversed, although I will traverse a little of it, because I feel that both the Senators concerned will have an opportunity, if they have not already done so, of studying the facts of the situation and realising, after their study of the facts, that their presentation of those facts was not as accurate as they or anybody else would wish.
Senator Hawkins said that the decision of the present Government to transfer the rural electrification subsidy to the E.S.B. had resulted in more people being fixed with a special service charge. As I said when I interrupted at the time, and I want to repeat it now, that, of course, is not correct. The special service charge is fixed by reference to the ratio of the capital cost of connecting a consumer to the flat valuation tariff that will be allowed for such connection, and the subsidy that was provided for rural electrification has no effect on or advertence whatever to that capital ratio.
Senator Hawkins also made an attack which, if it might not have repercussions outside the country, would be laughable. He purported directly to represent my colleague, the Tánaiste, and to suggest that the Tánaiste had attacked all Irish industrialists. Of course, the Tánaiste did nothing of the sort and, in fact, the attack would be quite laughable, were it not for the fact that there might be, perhaps, some danger of outsiders believing it. The Tánaiste at that time was speaking purely of profiteers. Nobody has done more than the Tánaiste in the past 12 months to ensure the development of Irish industry and I might add that the Irish industrialists are perfectly happy about the Tánaiste's policy in relation to the introduction of foreign capital. No matter what Senator Hawkins said, the intention is to supplement and not in any way to displace or compete with existing industry.
To come down to the terms of the special imports levy and the Hire Purchase Order, I had some further detailed queries put to me. Some of them, I am afraid, I would find somewhat difficult to deal with in a speech such as this. Quite occasionally, I get a little chipping over the fact that, as Minister for Finance, I am poacher turned gamekeeper. I shudder for people in certain businesses, judging by the number of queries Senator Douglas put to me. I can deal with some of them, but, with others, I cannot.
I am sure the Senator will appreciate that the Revenue Commissioners are ready and willing to discuss with any industrialist, importer or exporter any difficulty that any such person may have in the interpretation of the regulations and the Orders that have been made. Very often, it would not be an explanation, not an elucidation, but quite the reverse, if a Minister or anybody else were to attempt to simplify in a speech the exact significance of certain Orders of that sort. I would suggest to anybody who is worried about whether the Orders cover what he has in mind that, if he wishes, the Revenue Commissioners will be available to give him any information available and any help in interpretation. That applies to any question of trade or organisations.
The Senator also asked who was going to pay the levy. I want to make it clear in that respect that the purpose of the levy is its deterrent effect. Already this week the Tánaiste has made a standstill Order in respect of gramophone records for the express reason that we had information that certain people—I exclude the Senator who mentioned that he had some interest in this; it was not the Senator or anybody connected with him—who had stocks of gramophone records, brought in before the levy, had announced their intention of putting up the price by the amount of the levy so that, in fact, they would make an adventitious profit. The standstill Order was made to ensure that existing stocks, prior to the levy, would not be charged for at the original plus levy price. As those stocks are used up, the situation will require to be reviewed.
This is not the ordinary case where the stocks come in at a high price at one time and a lower price at another time and where there would be what one might describe as the swings and the roundabouts. In the ordinary case, where you have the swings and the roundabouts, I can understand businessmen saying that, where they are going to lose at one end of the transaction, they must have a cushion to offset the loss at the other end. But, in this case, the purpose of the levy is its deterrent effect and the whole of the deterrent effect would be lost, if that cushion were provided. Therefore, it is essential, in our view, that the existing stocks in the country should be disposed of at their pre-levy prices, so that in that way there will not be over-inducement, shall I say, to replace those stocks.
The Senator also mentioned certain matters in respect of the Hire Purchase Order. There is, of course, a provision in the Hire Purchase Order which prevents ordinary hiring as an easy means of dodging the hire purchase deposit regulations, but I am afraid it is impossible in any legislation to protect oneself against every possible loophole and against every possible foolishness. During the weekend, I happened to meet a friend of mine from my own constituency. He threw his arms around me and said: "Thank goodness, you have put on the restrictions on hire purchase". I said: "Why?" He replied: "I have got a very foolish wife who is always seeking for everything on the hire purchase". We cannot completely protect that person against his trouble. We can only make broad regulations to cover the difficulty, but if we find people deliberately trying to evade those regulations and drive a coach-and-four through them, then we must close the road to the coach-and-four as fast as we can. Certain of the Senators' observations will be useful to us in that respect in determining how we can deal with such loopholes.
Before I go on to discuss the principal matter in relation to the full import of our balance of payments situation and our economic situation, I would just refer to one matter so as not to drag it in across the debate at a later stage as a red herring in the general discussion. It was a suggestion made by Senator McHugh. Senator Hickey too, made the same suggestion in an entirely different way. I will mention Senator Hickey's suggestion in a moment. Senator McHugh threw out as a sort of red herring the question of our parity link with sterling. I do not think it is desirable that I should go into that at any great length tonight at the end of this debate, particularly, if I may say so, on the slightly superficial basis suggested by the Senator. I should like, however, to put one question to those who discuss from time to time the removal of the parity link with sterling.
It seems to me that, if we remove it, there are three things that could happen. First, our currency might still remain exactly the same value as the British £. If that happened, then we are talking about something that does not matter at all. Secondly, the Irish £ might become of greater value than the British £—it might be overvalued—and the third is that the Irish £ might be depreciated in relation to the British £. The first one does not matter. We are left with the second and the third. Entirely different results would inure to the Irish economy if it were a question of the Irish £ being overvalued or being undervalued. When people suggest there should be a change, I should like them to give some real thought—not superficial thought—to what they want subsequently. Do they want the Irish £ to be overvalued, or do they want it depreciated in value to the existing link? When the people who advocate that give some indication of what they want then we shall have a better opportunity of seeing the effects that would flow from their suggestions.
To change, just for the sake of change, is foolish. Anybody who wants to effect a change has a duty first, I submit, to make a case as to why the change is desirable. In this case, it is necessary to come down either on the undervalue side or on the overvalue side and make the case accordingly. When the case is made in that respect, then it can be considered.
I am afraid I completely failed to follow the figures given by Senator McHugh. As I understand him, he said we spend on education half of 1 per cent. I do not know whether he meant half of 1 per cent. of our governmental expenditure or of the national income. The current governmental expenditure in the Book of Estimates, as Senators are aware, is slightly under £100,000,000. If you add the Central Fund and the rest of the figures, even with the capital expenditure, the Senator's percentage would be miles out.
If he meant it in relation to national income, then I think it is equally wrong. For example, the national income, in the last two figures that were available, was £448,000,000 or £450,000,000—I forget the exact figure. Half of 1 per cent. would come to £2.2 million. The amount we pay to teachers alone is £5.6 million. The amount spent on the Department of Education and its ancillary services—taking as ancillary to the ordinary direct State education, universities and so forth—is something like £15,000,000. It is obvious, therefore, that I could not understand Senator McHugh's figures at all. Perhaps I have misinterpreted him when I say he said half of 1 per cent.
There was also some discussion by Senator Hickey, Senator Sheehy Skeffington and one or two other Senators to the effect that they did not see why, on any change in rates of interest on either side of the picture, the banks should make an additional profit. The fact is that any changes that have been made recently in respect of interest rates have been so deliberately balanced that there was not any profit to the commercial banks in the transaction. It is well known that the deposits in the commercial banks carry interest. If the rate of interest payable on these deposits is increased, the increase can only be met from the advance rates, and, as I say, the changes that were made were made quite deliberately on the basis of balancing out and there being no profit for the commercial banks in the transaction.
