Amendment No. 12 was in the names of the Minister, Deputies Gregory and Costello but I am advised that Deputy Costello is not putting his name to it.
SECTION 4.
I move amendment No. 12:
In page 5, subsection (1) (a), to delete lines 37 to 41.
I propose under this amendment to delete the tax clearance provision in section 4 (1) (a) and replace it with an administrative requirement for applicants for casual trading licences to quote their RSI numbers on their application forms. This follows Government approval and acknowledgement that the original tax clearance requirement would present an unjustifiable and disproportionate burden on the casual trading community. I am satisfied the alternative system for applicants to quote RSI numbers for their licences, which has been accepted as necessary by the casual traders association, will provide a more equitable approach to levelling the playing pitch for casual traders and established trading interests.
I welcome the Minister changing the Bill in this fundamental respect. What was at issue was that to produce a tax clearance certificate requires accounting procedures beyond the ability of, for example, a woman stallholder selling vegetables in Moore Street. The threat of the original proposal was dramatic; it could have destroyed traditional stallholders in Moore Street and many other legitimate, licence bearing stallholders in the city and elsewhere. It would have been beyond their ability to undertake the accounting procedures and it probably would not have been financially possible for them to survive if they were obliged to do so. The face of Moore Street might have been transformed from the traditional scene, which is made so much of in our tourism brochures. Even political party leaders feel it is obligatory to go there at election time to shake the hands of the "Molly Malones"— I hope that continues and that the stallholders are there to receive them.
I brought a delegation to the Minister, and he probably received other representations specifically from Moore Street, who made the case far better than I could. I am glad he responded as he has. The removal of the requirement of a tax clearance certificate, which would have particularly affected the smaller stallholder selling fruit and vegetables, is a major victory for those who campaigned against it. It introduces an element of fairness into the Bill, which I acknowledge and for which I thank him. I am happy to support him in deleting this provision.
It is beyond my wildest dreams that I would have heard such a statement from the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, who has spoken so dedicatedly over the years about tax clearance certificates and tax evasion. This legislation will provide that one group of people do not need a tax clearance certificate and I cannot believe it has come from that quarter. This is absurd and it is an insult to honest, decent traders throughout this island who have to make a livelihood, pay VAT, PRSI and rates, while being arrogantly competed against by casual traders in the heavy goods area.
The Minister talked about a level playing pitch, but there is no such thing here. Any one of the 3.5 million who live in Ireland could hold an RSI number, and some people hold two, so that provision means nothing. Some traders deal in heavy hardware, importing it from Northern Ireland and selling it on the roadside — gates, wheelbarrows, garden equipment, carpets, household goods and hardware. It does not make sense to exempt them.
I sympathise with the people in Dublin mentioned by Deputy Gregory and the Evening Echo sellers and others in Cork city, but we cannot legislate in this way. This is contrary to the taxation measures passed by the Oireachtas over the years and it opens the floodgates. A campaign was fought by the farming community when they did not want to get clearance certificates and RSI numbers for headage payments. These were small farmers who could ill afford to register and make tax returns. Farmers in Donegal, one of the poorest areas of the country, had to get certificates. It is unbelievable that Deputy Rabbitte, who has spoken so eloquently and often about taxation——
For the second, I ask the Deputy to address the Minister by his proper title.
This is the most contentious issue that has ever faced the House.
It will become more contentious, Deputy, if you do not give the Minister his proper title and designation.
I apologise; I should have called him the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte. I cannot understand that this Government of transparency and accountability has agreed that people can trade without being properly certified for tax. Small hardware merchants are in difficulty, as the Chairman will be aware. In every town they are eking out an existence, living on a pittance. Their margins are being cut because they are being overburdened by taxation, VAT registration and payments, PRSI payments and all other matters in the Revenue Commissioners' area.
Now other people will be privileged as against legitimate traders who have been established for generations in our towns and villages. They will sell heavy hardware, often not of good quality, and local hardware merchants will suffer. Those premises will close because they will not have the turnover volume. These merchants are being competed against unfairly by casual traders.
This Bill fails in that it does not differentiate between the people whom I sympathise with, those in Dublin, Cork and various places selling strawberries and so on, and those who sell along the road, causing a nuisance through people travelling to their stalls, and who sell gates, wheelbarrows, garden equipment and heavy hardware.
Who is buying the gates?
If the Deputy was on my side of the House he would say something else; we heard him so often. It is being imported in large juggernauts. These people trade against legitimate merchants and now they will have a concessionary position. This will not happen because there will be an outcry against it. This may impinge on the Occasional Trading Act, but auction systems are also being set up whereby people take a room in a hotel or house and trade. This also affects the people mentioned by Deputy Gregory. It will take the bread off their table. If there are to be concessions, let there be a level playing field, but that is not the case in this instance.
I am amused at how Deputy Ned O'Keeffe talks about the goodwill of the Minister. The Minister is to be congratulated for his foresight in deleting the phrase "including tax clearance certificate" in regard to the licensing of traders. How would Deputy Ned O'Keeffe differentiate between the Moore Street traders, the Echo boys in Cork city and the coal traders in Cork city if he was to include a tax clearance certificate as a requirement for the licence? Now they will all have to supply an RSI number to the relevant local authority when applying for their licence to trade. It is up to the income tax officials to follow up the RSI number. I remind Deputy Ned O’Keeffe that the majority of farmers in Ireland are not compelled to supply a tax clearance certificate to obtain grants of anything up to £20,000 or £25,000. They are only compelled to supply an RSI number.
The Minister could not approach this matter in a more humane way. I congratulate him for what he has done. He has taken a firm step forward in trying to level the playing pitch. I hope it will work. Deputy Ned O'Keeffe should not criticise the Minister for people around the country supplying gates, wheelbarrows, timber, iron or whatever else. He should blame the farmers who buy the goods from them and leave the local merchants die out. Deputy Ned O'Keeffe would not turn his back on buying a lorry load of iron for any improvement works he was carrying out in his major piggeries in Mitchelstown.
How dare the Deputy say that. I only buy the best.
I congratulate the Minister of State. He has done an excellent job.
I thank Deputies for their contributions. We should try to keep this in perspective. As Deputy Sheehan said, it is a difficult matter to try to differentiate between the occasional spiv traders who visit from Britain or elsewhere and who are, as Deputy Ned O'Keeffe conceded, covered by the Occasional Trading Act, 1979, rather than this Bill, and the case Deputy Gregory referred to of the tradition in Moore Street. It is a difficult matter to encompass both, but we should keep some perspective.
For Deputy Ned O'Keeffe to make vigorous charges and comparisons of tax evasion and say that this facilitates tax evasion is to lose the meaning of language. If I was trying to influence the elimination of tax evasion in the economy, as I have been and will continue to do, I would not start with the stallholders of Moore Street. I do not think the pram ladies are the major source of tax evasion in society and it would take an awful lot of persuasion to show me otherwise.
As Deputy Gregory mentioned, I met some of the women representatives of those concerned. Many of them have lived their lives in a tradition that is one of disadvantage in one way and of great colour and diversity in another. However, it does not involve any erudition in accountancy or the production of tax clearance certificates. They do not know about and have never used tax clearance certificates. Many of them have never called on the State for anything. They point to the fact that the State in one guise or another, mainly the local authority, has not been as kind as it might be in providing for them in terms of the working environment they have to endure in bad weather.
We should keep this in perspective. This is a tradition that is part of Dublin. I would not be associated with any moves that would damage or terminate that tradition. We are all proud of it. We all visited it occasionally. Leading politicians seek it out, among them Deputy Ned O'Keeffe's present leader and a former leader, who were the first to put their arms around the "Molly Malones". Both of them, unlike me, can sing and I have seen them in full flight. It may be all right for Deputy Ned O'Keeffe and Deputy O'Rourke to make this argument; but if the leader of Fianna Fáil, Deputy Bertie Ahern, was to overhear his Deputies arguing for the end of Moore Street and the killing off of the "Molly Malones", I cannot believe he would agree.
The Minister of State is trying to twist it around his own way. I prefaced my remarks by saying that I understood the situation in Dublin.
The Deputy has asked for it by kicking the ball in and he has to take his medicine.
The Deputies representing that constituency — Deputy Costello, who has made representations to me, Deputy Gregory and Deputy Bertie Ahern — fully support the continuation of this tradition in Dublin and fully support the continuation of the "Molly Malones" being permitted to make a living. The requirement on them to produce a tax clearance certificate is something with which they are not familiar. I would have to concede that the requirement to produce an RSI number will not be complied with in some cases because some people do not have one. As Deputy Sheehan said, the RSI number is a sensible compromise, inasmuch as it is not my Department's job to do the job of the Revenue Commissioners. I am satisfied the Revenue Commissioners can adequately deal with the situation without any draconian power being put in the Bill.
I would underline the point made about members of the farming community who are entitled to and who apply for significant grants, including, I would mention in passing, those to protect against slurry pits, and do not have to provide a tax clearance certificate for eligibility.
If we are to talk about stamping out tax evasion, Moore Street is not the place to start. This is a reasonable compromise and the administrative requirement is good. I have met the Irish Hardware Association, to whom Deputy Ned O'Keeffe referred. I understand its point of view and it is not perhaps entirely happy about this. It is pleased, however, about the regulation of casual trading. It is pleased that nobody can any longer set up in competition to its members at any pitch they choose. It is satisfied that there is a requirement to advise the Department of Social Welfare and to give an RSI number. All in all, it will concede that it is a substantial improvement on the present situation.
On this RSI number, is the provision in the Bill?
It is an administrative requirement.
Amendment agreed to.
Amendments No. 13 and 13a not moved.
Amendment No. 14 was to be discussed with amendment No. 13a. As Deputy Costello is not here to move his amendment, I asks Deputy Gregory to move amendments Nos. 14 and 15 separately and not to tie them in with discussion of amendment No. 13a.
I move amendment No. 14:
In page 6, subsection (6), line 27, to delete "5 years" and substitute "1 year".
What I am asking for in this amendment is reasonable. I am not clear on the reasons for going back five years. Section 4 (6) states that:
A local authority may refuse to grant a casual trading licence to a person who has been convicted of an offence in relation to the importation, possession or sale of goods committed while he was the holder of a casual trading licence or an offence under this Act. . . . during the period of 5 years before the date of application for the licence.
Again, I am only speaking from the experience of what I deal with in my own constituency. In the vast majority of cases, offences under the Casual Trading Act, 1980, are extremely trivial; in many instances I would not consider them to be offences at all. I do not understand the reasoning behind going back five years. My amendment would substitute "5 years" and "1 year". One would think that looking for a casual trading licence was like winning the lotto — that it was worth millions of pounds. Nobody here will ever be in the disadvantaged position where they will have to apply to a local authority for a casual trading licence, so I want to put things into perspective. We are not dealing with major crime. Again, I am talking of the background I am dealing with in central Dublin, where offences committed in the previous five years would be trivial ones.
There is another difficulty with this and I will be coming to it again — far more so — in amendment No. 15. In that instance, if a man or woman is convicted under the 1980 Act or this Bill, they will get a penalty in court. That should be the end of it, as is the case with any other offence. One is brought before the courts, charged and, if convicted, fined or ends up in Mountjoy. The latter happens with many of the women in my constituency because they cannot afford to pay the fine. On top of that, if we go ahead with this subsection, their livelihood is taken from them.
I will intervene to say that I see some merit in Deputy Gregory's argument. I am happy to take it back and have a look at the subsection for Report Stage.
Does Deputy Gregory accept that?
Yes, fine.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I move amendment No. 15:
In page 6, lines 29 to 38, to delete subsection (7).
This amendment follows the same argument as the previous amendment, but to a greater degree. I will explain further. Section 4 (7) states that:
A local authority shall not grant a casual trading licence to a person who has been convicted of two or more offences. . . . if two, at least, of the convictions occurred less than 5 years before the first day on which the person proposes to engage in casual trading.
This is a much stronger measure and I want to give an example that Dublin Corporation had difficulty with themselves under a similar provision in the 1980 Act. Dublin Corporation were dealing with a situation involving a number of traditional street traders, mainly elderly women. They designated pitches for them in Cole's Lane, which is the main entrance into the ILAC Centre off Henry Street. They wanted to allocate these pitches fairly and to the women they knew to be the longest out on the streets, but they could not do it. The reason was that these women had minor convictions under the Casual Trading Act, so they had to wait five years. They had to leave the places that the City Council had designated in Cole's Lane dormant and unused. The corporation had to wait a period of four to five years until it was legally permissible to grant licences to the women that they knew were most deserving of them. They could easily have handed them out to all comers, people who were there only a year or two, but they did not.
We are going down the same road again. If I am to be consistent, I have to look at this subsection as well and I promise I will come back with something on it on Report Stage. It is not exactly the same but it stems from it.
It is in the same arena. Does Deputy Gregory agree with it and, on that basis, withdraw amendment No. 15?
Yes.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment No. 15a not moved.
I move amendment No. 16:
In page 7, lines 3 to 12, to delete subsection (11).
Amendment agreed to.
I move amendment No. 17:
In page 7, lines 13 to 17, to delete subsection (12).
This amendment seeks to delete section 4 (12), which states that:
Upon the grant of a casual trading licence, or as soon as may be thereafter, the local authority concerned shall notify the Minister for Social Welfare in writing of the name and address of the person to whom the licence was granted and the conditions. . . . contained in the licence including the duration thereof."
I have a number of reasons for opposing this subsection. It would seem that the implication of the condition is that people who would look for a casual trading licence are people who would try to defraud the Department of Social Welfare. That is the implication as it comes across to me. I wonder how many other categories of people who apply for licences to the State have this as a condition and why it is particularly necessary in this instance to write it into law. Most of the people who hold casual trading licences are out in the street trading. There is no big secret about it.
This matter is interesting in the context of a number of other issues which I have pursued for some time, particularly in relation to landlords who get rent subsidies from the State. I have made the case — I understand the Revenue Commissioners have also made the case — that information about such landlords should be passed from the Department of Social Welfare to the special investigation branch of the Revenue Commissioners. Departments have consistently refused to give this information to the investigation branch of the Revenue Commissioners.
I pursued this issue by tabling questions in the Dáil, but I will not delay the committee by reading out all the answers. One such reply on 25 January 1995 stated that the "question of Revenue access to information held by public authorities is being considered by the Department of Finance". The Department is considering this issue for a long time. The reply continued:
The reluctance to grant power of access to information is related to an awareness of the requirements of data protection legislation. It appears that specific legislative authority for the transfer of information is needed where the data protection law precludes its automatic transfer.
The Minister is aware that landlords in this country are getting approximately £40 million to £50 million in rent subsidies from the taxpayer. The names and addresses of these landlords cannot be transferred from one Department to the Revenue Commissioners. However, this Bill includes a specific provision so that such information about people who sell bananas from prams can be given to the Revenue Commissioners. We spoke earlier about level playing pitches. Although the Minister is including such a provision in this Bill, the Garda Síochána already uses such a method to try to drive unregistered street traders — this group want to address this committee — off the streets. They systematically report to the Department of Social Welfare people who sell oranges or whatever fruit of which there is a glut.
I raised this issue on 8 February 1994 with the Minister for Justice to see if the Garda, who were so diligent in their attempts to ensure that a woman earning a pittance was brought to the attention of the arms of the State, might be equally diligent about major drug dealers who claim social welfare and who buy property, invest in lucrative activities, go on foreign holidays every few weeks and drive new cars. I received a reply which stated that the primary responsibility of the Garda in relation to persons suspected of dealing in drugs is to secure their conviction for offences under the appropriate provisions of the Criminal Law Act and that all information given to the Garda or coming to their notice during the course of a criminal investigation is confidential. I do not understand how Departments cannot pass such information about landlords and criminal drug dealers, who make millions of pounds, to other Departments. Yet there is a specific provision in this Bill to do that with street traders who earn a pittance.
You are being repetitive now because you have already made that point.
I am interested to hear the Minister's views in this regard.
I ask the Minister to reply at this stage.
The requirement in subsection (12) to provide information to the Minister for Social Welfare regarding licences issued under the Bill is a specific requirement contained in the Government decision approving the scheme of the Bill. I will not, therefore, accept the amendment. The Department already provides information to the Department of Social Welfare on all casual trading licences issued on a regular basis. This is a statutory requirement under section 31 of the Social Welfare Act, 1988, which provides for the exchange of information between the Minister for Social Welfare, the Revenue Commissioners and any other Minister. Section 5 of the Bill — this is proposed in the amendment — requires that a person's licence number is displayed at the place where he or she is trading. The amendment, therefore, has the same effect as the provision.
Deputy Gregory argued about other well known alleged categories of tax evaders.
These people are not tax evaders.
I am sure that is true. However, as regards landlords, Deputy Gregory will be aware that the Minister for Finance introduced a mechanism in the Finance Act, 1995, which will flush out some of the errant landlords to which he referred. There is no implication in this Bill that people are automatically deemed to be people who might defraud the Department of Social Welfare. However, this is the other side of the coin, which Deputy Edward O'Keeffe tried to raise earlier when he asked me to introduce tax clearance certificates for Moore Street. Deputy Edward O'Keeffe's argument has some weight in terms of looking at the global situation to which this Bill will apply. This is not an unreasonable compromise, which is what it was intended to be. As Deputy Gregory said, people must display their licence numbers on their stalls.
So it is unnecessary.
It will save having to take down the licence numbers. It is an administratively convenient mechanism to provide some type of medium between Deputy Gregory and Deputy Edward O'Keeffe.
I am disappointed that cold water has been thrown on my statement on taxation and tax clearance certificates. The constituency of west Cork has a large number of hardware merchants and craft businessmen and they will not be overly enthusiastic about what the Minister has said. Their livelihood is based on a small turnover and interference from casual trading in heavy goods has resulted in major losses.
I ask the Deputy to keep to the discussion here, not that in the constituency of west Cork.
I am disappointed that these people do not have to register for VAT. Casual trading is a broad term. We have people who casually trade on a once-off basis in the countryside. The person might receive an offer from an outlet and set up shop for a day and a night and wreck the business system in the area to the disadvantage of many of the traders in our towns and villages. No effort is being made to stamp out that practice. Many of them are on social welfare. The source of the goods is often questionable. Where are they from? Are they smuggled or stolen? Those questions are not being addressed.
I have no difficulty with the Moore Street traders or with any traders in Dublin. I understand their plight and their way of living. I also understand the Echo people in Cork, where there are 150 or more, and the strawberry traders in Wexford. However, this——
I have let the Deputy make his point but he is straying from the terms of the amendment.
The best statement on this was made by my colleague, Deputy Hughes, from Westport in the Dáil on 9 March when he spoke about the overnight traders to whom I have referred. They are now being made exempt from VAT. I fail to understand how we can exempt one sector.
I ask the Deputy to desist from making repetitive statements which have already been dealt with by the Minister.
That policy is unfair.
I do not want this to become a party political pitch for Cork or elsewhere. This debate is on the amendment and the Deputy is straying from it.
I am not straying from it. I am aware of the repercussions and weaknesses of this legislation. For years we have been trying to put this legislation on the Statute Book. Now we are diluting it every day and making it easier for people to operate. I appeal to the Minister to look at the tax area. This country has already experienced a great deal of abuse of the taxation system. The Minister is again opening the gate and making it easier to abuse the system. Once the gate is opened the legislation is further diluted as people bring more and more cases.
I must stop the Deputy as he is talking about a different amendment. He is not talking about the one before the committee.
I am talking about casual trading.
Is the amendment being pressed?
It is gone past the time.
I will look after the affairs of the Chair.
Amendment put and declared lost.
Does the committee wish to continue until 1 p.m. or 1.30 p.m.?
I am amenable to Deputy Gregory's suggestion that we complete section 4.
Amendment No. 18 not moved.
Section 4, as amended, agreed to.
We move to section 5——
My proposal was that we just deal with section 4.
I asked if the committee would like to proceed until 1 p.m.
No. We were told late last night that we would conclude at 12.30 p.m. I have to leave.
The Deputy is correct. However, the committee has the right to extend the time if it so wishes. When would the Minister like to continue consideration of this Bill?
As soon as possible.
Next Tuesday morning?
The Cabinet meets on Tuesday morning.
Is Tuesday afternoon at 2.30 p.m. suitable?
We were given the date of next Wednesday.
I am advised that G2 is available on Wednesday for the committee. Is the Minister available on Wednesday.
I am in the Seanad at 10.30 a.m. but I can be here at 2.30 p.m.
Is 2.30 p.m. agreed?
Taoiseach's Question Time is at 2.30 p.m.
Members cannot be here and be at Question Time. There is provision for substitutes.
Could we make it 3.15 p.m.?
No. The consensus is for 2.30 p.m. on Wednesday.
Will the meeting continue until 6 p.m.?
The meeting will go from 2.30 p.m. to 6 p.m. if necessary. Is that agreed? Agreed.
The Select Committee adjourned at 12.35 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Wednesday, 21 June 1995.