I move that the Vote be referred back for reconsideration. This particular motion to refer back this huge Vote is tabled with the same intention as I tabled the last. My opinion is that it is idle to be deploring the general expenditure and extravagance within this State under its present administration, unless we associate that directly with the Minister for Finance. We find that every Vote under his control is increasing by leaps and bounds, year after year and decade after decade as if the people got money from the skies with every shower of rain. We have the same sparcity of information in this mild request for £1,000,000 odd as we had for the previous demand for a paltry £80,000 or £90,000. We get no information as to why the extra sums are needed or why such an immense sum is needed. The number of people is far less than it was ten years ago. The general efficiency of the Civil Service must be increasing with time and experience. We have an experienced Civil Service to-day, but 20 years ago we had a raw Civil Service, inexperienced and untrained, yet half the numbers at half the cost could administer the affairs of this State then.
We find that the cost of the Revenue Commissioners in the last ten years has increased by, approximately, £300,000, to enable a Government with imperial notions to take more and more money out of the pockets of the people. There are less people in the country, so why more collectors? It does not matter whether my taxes in a year are £60 or £600. I am only one person or one item, and it is only one collection. Here is £300,000 extra, for the purpose of paying the staff of the Revenue Commissioners. That is what is put up to us in the House, while outside the House we have 50,000 young Irish children running wild and the grass growing on the paths leading up to our school houses, because anything like that sum cannot be spent on education.
Again I appeal to the Minister not to be so coy, not to be so shy and modest. If he has anything to brag about on behalf of this £1,000,000-a-year Department, let us have it. We would be delighted to see the Minister stick out his chest and, instead of bludgeoning a poor old British Legion ex-soldier, boast about the prowess of the Revenue Commissioners and what they have accomplished this year that they did not accomplish ten years ago. Let him tell us why their premium has to go up by £300,000 this year as against their cost ten years ago. Surely there is some reason why they deserve that extra sum. The Minister is not always so coy and so modest. Perhaps he will give at the end the explanation he should give at the beginning. This Parliament is entitled to resent the tactics of the fishwoman, trying to have the last word but afraid to say anything at the beginning, for fear that particular explanation might be the subject of criticism. If the Minister is sitting over a Department that is worth one million odd hard earned pounds per year, and if it is doing half a million pounds' worth of better work than it did 14 years ago and £300,000 worth of better work than it did ten years ago, then we should be given the reason, but the Minister should not think it is sufficient to mix six words of Irish and 12 words of English and say nothing at the end but merely present the Bill.
