I propose to carry out my intention to speak briefly on the Finance Bill at this rather late stage of a long debate. I want to discuss it and come at it from two very different perspectives. First, I want to make some general observations about the intentions of the Bill and the general economic climate and then I want to refer to some specific sections and raise a number of questions that I hope the Minister will respond to in his reply to the debate.
The first general observation that I would like to make is to comment — as other Members have done — on the extraordinarily depressed state in which the country finds itself at the moment. This is evident in individual responses of people that you meet in the street or in the work place. It is evident in comments made by the media. It is evident to a considerable extent in our general outlook and psyche as a nation at the moment. It is a matter that we ought to take stock of and note as being itself a negative factor and something which can be quite damaging to us. It is possibly worse in an Irish context than it might be for some other countries because as a people we have, possibly, a tendency to suffer from depressive aspects in our personalities. We are easily depressed and if depressed we go down as a nation and find it difficult to respond positively to difficulties.
The reason for couching my observations in such a broad way is to ponder how a Government and, indeed, leaders in the country can ensure that the reaction and the response that we make to difficulties at the moment is one which will help us to cope with and surmount those difficulties. It is important that the leadership that is given is a positive and rather more optimistic and purposeful leadership than we are perhaps getting at the moment. The emphasis is on the problems. The emphasis is on the extent to which, through over-borrowing, we have got ourselves into difficulties. The emphasis is on the extent to which, through heavy taxation, we must try to resolve those difficulties. There is not sufficient attention being paid to the human factors involved, to the depressing effect this has on people, individually and collectively, individually in their families and collectively in their communities and even in a more general national sense.
The approach to surmounting our problems is part of the way in which we surmount them. It is part of the way in which we devise the programme and action plan to get ourselves out of our difficulties. I have noted, as other contributors to the debate have — indeed the Minister himself made reference to this — that the Finance Bill is receiving very close scrutiny. It has received close scrutiny both in the media and in both Houses of the Oireachtas which is understandable because of the difficult times and because it is seen in a sort of punitive light. It is seen as being a measure which will worsen the immediate situation for a very broad number of individuals and which is deemed to be necessary at the moment because of the overall plight in which we find ourselves.
In fact, the Finance Bill is one of the major fiscal measures by which a Government can direct and can move in a policy direction and can try to generate a sense of action and of purpose in surmounting our problems. Therefore, I believe that it is going to be extremely important from now on this year and in the difficult years ahead that measures which are brought forward, particularly measures of important fiscal and economic policies are part of a coherent and constructive plan of action, of where we are going and how we are going to get there, devised in such a way as to lift people to an aceptance of hard measures because they are leading to a better deal for the individuals involved, for their children and their children's children and so on. It is possible to bring people to an acceptance of the particular difficulties that require to be surmounted. But this is not done in a negative and punitive and pejorative context so that the people feel weighed down, hopeless, depressed, fed up and then alienated from the Government which is bringing forward or deciding on these particular measures.
I believe that great care requires to be taken by any Government in a country such as Ireland at the moment, with a young and insufficiently employed population. I agree with my immediate predecessor on the problem of people having no real stake in the country and having a great deal of leisure without the possibility of an involvement through employment in the structures and the general economic and social life of the country. Therefore any Government seeking to lead and seeking to devise a programme and plan of action over the next few years should have as well as actual measures high in its priorities a necessity to communicate a positive framework, to communicate in a much more constructive and inspirational way which will enable decisions to be both taken by the Government and broadly accepted in the community so that we do not have a continuation of a certain appearance of social disintegration which is evident in certain aspects of the political and social life in Ireland at the moment and which is worrying a great many people. We do need much deeper and better communication, two-way communication, listening at the top level as well as pronouncing but also that all this would be in a cogent and coherent plan of action, as I said.
I believe that the kind of leadership which the Government must offer at the moment is one which involves as broad a range of people within the community as possible in reacting to and coming forward with suggestions and being listened to in those suggestions about how we resolve the problems. That leadership must be concerned with explaining, again as I say, in a more optimistic and purposeful way the reasons why it is necessary and, indeed, vital, to the broad security and coherence of this country that we do maintain a high level of taxation over the next few years. The necessity for that is quite inevitable particularly with the demands of a young and growing population but the way in which that fundamental message is communicated is almost as vital as the message itself. How we spell it out, how we involve and include people are almost as important as the actual steps that are being proposed.
I say this because the wide focus of attention on this Finance Bill has very largely regarded it as a punitive and negative measure which has imposed certain degrees of burden on individuals and which is doing very little to redress the overall problem. I do not think that this is in fact a fair or adequate comment on the Finance Bill of 1983. The interesting aspect of the Bill is the extent to which it is not a radical overhaul of the taxation system. Indeed, I would make that a qualified criticism of the Bill. I would qualify the criticism because I am of the view that there was not adequate time between the change of Government at the end of last year and the necessity to finalise the budgetary provisions and publish the Finance Bill for a radical overhaul. This is by no means a dramatic shift in regard to who will carry the tax burden over the next few years. It is by no means a radical step in achieving equity in the bearing of the tax burden. It is by no means a measure which is substantially hurting the better off in our society. Therefore it is interesting to view the extent to which its measures are nonetheless being protested about and criticised as being punitive.
It certainly is a serious attempt to control and curtail tax evasion and perhaps the extent of the outcry is some indication that it was not before time that we had a serious fiscal measure to curtail and control tax evasion. It does not have substantial proposals for wealth tax. It does not have substantial proposals for broadening the tax base in the community. It does not have some of the far-reaching measures which may well — and hopefully will — become part of our approach to tax reform over the next few years. Yet it has been greeted with a level of dismay and regarded as being a very punitive measure. At least part of the way in which the Finance Bill is seen is because of the context and the manner in which it has been presented, because of the negative and depressive approach that has been adopted, not, I am sure, deliberately and presumably unconsciously in the way in which the Minister himself and other spokespersons on behalf of the Government have argued the need for this measure. It is not seen in the context of a way of getting our acts together, of a productive plan of action for this country which will help in a concrete and constructive way to resolve our very intractable problems. It is seen in isolation, subjectively and selectively and, therefore, certain aspects of it are singled out for particular criticism which, as I say, is not in fact a balanced and fair comment on the kind of problems which we have in this country at the moment.
Like a number of other people I am concerned that the Finance Bill has been a further incentive to a kind of tax revolt, a determination by those who are employed and holding jobs, particularly those who pay what they correctly — broadly speaking — regard as too heavy a share of the tax burden, the PAYE workers, to revolt against paying any more tax. It is extremely important that the overall needs and balance in our society be presented in such a way that the message is not only received but is accepted that we must maintain over the next number of years the high level of Government revenue which will ensure that we provide the services and the general structure for a large dependent and a young growing population, for the old dependant, the infirm and those who need the special services and care provided by State agencies and also the health, welfare, education and other needs of a young, growing population. It is a matter of concern because it is part of this negative spiral that I have been describing that there is this selective revolt against paying taxes and a narrow perspective in which that revolt is being examined and discussed and being commented on in the media.
One of the reasons why this is a fairly destructive and divisive internal debate that is happening in Ireland at the moment is because there is not evidence of this constructive plan of action. We are not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel of four or five years of fairly severe restrictive measures in this country. We do not see the possibility that there will be a better, fairer and more equitable and more positive future either for the individuals themselves in the pipeline or for the young population coming on to the labour force each year. It is the lack of vision and imagination and the lack of leadership of that sort which has very substantially aggravated our immediate problems and given rise to a level of dissent and social disharmony far greater than anything that I certainly have witnessed in my time in public life.
Therefore, I would hope that the future fiscal planning and policy of the Government will be carved and moulded in a more positive and constructive framework and that we will see greater access to the information on which these policy decisions are based and greater involvement of sectors of the community in economic and tax planning over the next few years so that people will feel that they have been involved in the process themselves and that the measures being taken are part of a very substantial overall plan.
I would like to turn now briefly to two sections on which I would be pleased to have comments from the Minister in his reply. The first of these relates to the improvement in the position of separated couples in the income tax assessments and the maintenance provisions of separated couples. That has been widely recognised as a useful reforming measure in this Bill. However, I read with interest an article in The Irish Times dated 27 May 1983 by Donal Dorcy precisely on this provision pointing out that, although it is an improvement on the pre-existing situation which was undoubtedly very discriminatory against separated couples, it still contains a certain difficulty for couples who have not got the degree of co-operation requisite to file a joint assessment and who do not appear to be able to avail of separate assessment. If I may refer to a passage in this article where the——
