As a result of the debate, we know now a great deal more about this tax, about the working of the charge and about what the charge is estimated to bring in than we did a fortnight ago. We have had on this Motion and on the varying amendments that were moved to it, a full discussion of this question from all its aspects. The Dáil has been afforded two opportunities of expressing its opinion on this tax. It has declined to disapprove of the tax and it has also declined to approve of it. The matter now, as the lawyers say, may be said to be left "without prejudice." I think, having achieved my object in the main, that I have been justified in putting the Motion down, because if I had not done so we should not have had the explanation given by the Minister for Finance, which I regard as satisfactory. He said I was entitled, in some sense, to an apology. I prefer not to take it in that limited sense because I think I received a full and fair apology from the Minister. He made it clear that so far as he was concerned, that any pledge given by him to the Dáil was intended to be honoured in the spirit and in the letter, and that but for his illness he would have come to the Dáil before imposing this charge. That was in substance and in effect my case. The Minister agreed that but for his illness the Dáil would have had the opportunity which he promised, of expressing an opinion upon this charge before it was imposed.
It is now common ground that whatever the legal powers were that were given by past Acts to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, or to any other Minister, taxes imposed for reasons of policy in order to divert trade into other channels and estimated to place a considerable burden upon the shoulders of some persons in the Saorstát should not be imposed without the Dáil having an opportunity of expressing an opinion on the matter. That was what I really wished to establish and that being so, I do not wish to press my point any further. We all deplored the absence of the Minister for Finance, and we all deplored the reason for that absence. I do not want to press home the effect of that Governmental mistake which was due to the illness of an individual Minister. As regards the general question and the policy of the tax, I do not intend to discuss that now. I think that the charge is bound up intimately, more intimately even than the Minister states, with the Statistical Tax. If, in the next Budget, we succeed in defeating the Statistical Tax, then this will follow on it as a natural corollary. I would therefore ask the leave of the Dáil to withdraw the motion.
