I should like to say a little on this section which is the one which imposes the surcharge on all income tax which is paid at the rate of 35p in the £. This is a typical example of the difficulty of following the twists and turns in policy of the Minister for Finance. Only a few months ago the Minister was saying in Dáil Éireann, at column 1581, Volume 278 of the Official Report of 15th April:
Nominal incomes in Ireland are, in fact, in real terms worth much less than in any other European country I know of because of the very high levels of tax associated with brackets of income, the thresholds of which are below those applicable in other countries. In order to try to cool the situation for top executives' salary demands, which will have a beneficial effect I believe right down the line, we consider it is appropriate on the income front alone, if wealth tax were never to be contemplated, to make these adjustments in the thresholds and the rates.
This was when he was reducing the level of surtax in his January budget. In other words, the case he was making was that, in the interests of the economy, in order to further enterprise, to encourage executives to come and settle here and to build up industry, it was necessary to reduce the rates of income tax on these grades. The grades covered by the surcharge, as I mentioned on the Second Stage of this Bill, include almost all the people whom one thinks of as middle class, teachers, executives of all kinds, almost the whole of the Civil Service, all these are covered. These are precisely the people the Minister, as recently as January, felt it necessary to help by putting excessively high levels of income tax on them. It is unfortunately too usual with this Minister, having made these wise and correct remarks, to turn round the following month and put back part of this tax on these same people. It is difficult to understand the purpose of it. It is difficult to understand why alone of the entire community this relatively small section should be expected to pay for the cost of the various subsidies in this Bill. One wonders whether it is that the Minister feels that the voting power of those who do not suffer from this tax is greater than those who do and can afford to ignore their views in this matter.
Leaving aside the political aspect of it, the Minister is unwise in that this type of taxation is not going to help to put people into employment; it is a drag on enterprise. He has told us it is intended to be temporary. I would be interested to know whether the Parliamentary Secretary has any suggestion as to how temporary he feels it is likely to be. It is supposed to be taken off as soon as possible. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to give us some kind of assurance that if not next January, certainly it will be no later than the budget after that.