This is the over-all cost per head. I think it is well that I should give these figures. There are many families consisting of a man, his wife and three children. It is just as well that I should reassure Deputies that I believe these are accurate figures as far as we can get them. They do constitute a burden on families. I recognise that. The only alternative, if we were to balance the Budget and reduce to some degree the subsidies, would be to tax still further some of the usual commodities. We could say that, in order to balance the Budget without in some way or other reducing the subsidies, we would have to add at least one-third, and double in some instances, some of the present taxes. For example, we could add another 2d. on beer, another 3d. on cigarettes, another 1/- on income-tax, another 2d. on whiskey and another 2d. or 3d. on petrol and achieve the same result, I suppose, but it is far better to be honest and to tell the facts in regard to this whole subsidy position.
We have left subsidies which will cost us £8,500,000 per year. We compromised on the general question of whether to abolish subsidies completely or not. We recognised that there were large families and persons with very low incomes who needed assistance. I think Deputies should pursue these figures in regard to their consumption habits in this country. They are average figures and must be taken with all the reservations applied to average figures.
In 1949, which is the latest date for which we have information — and figures have not been compiled for the two succeeding years — out of every £1 of wages approximately 2/6 was spent on drink and tobacco. If we regard it another way and divide up an expenditure of about £44,000,000 on drink, tobacco and amusements, which we know was spent exclusive of tourists, among 3,000,000 people the consumption comes to 5/6 per head. That is a most dangerous average because there are a great many people who do not smoke. There are others who do not drink and there are others who neither drink nor smoke, and there are others who do not indulge in amusements. Deputies can work out for themselves what they think would be an average expenditure. I am only giving 5/6 per head per week covering the whole 3,000,000. Having regard to the heavy expenditure we are now incurring, some £15,000,000, we know that a great many people must spend at least 5/6 per week on drink, tobacco and amusements. We believe there are some people who should be able to face a reduction in the subsidy, while there are others whom we should try to help by reductions in income-tax or by extra children's allowances or other extra forms of assistance.
We are in very good company in regard to that decision. Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark and Britain, countries with very advanced forms of Government, intend, this year, to reduce subsidies by stages. There is not likely to be any reduction in the cost of foods, and what was meant to be a safeguard to families during a war or a temporary inflation has now become a matter of taxing the whole community for subsidies and giving the money back in the form of lower food prices. I think myself that it is only reasonable for us to have taken that action having regard to the difficulties in facing the Budget.
I want to deal in some detail with the question of the dance tax. As far as I can gather, there has been a very large amount of serious criticism in regard to the fact that we have permitted the dance tax. The dance tax remission will bring in a saving of about £100,000 this year and £140,000 in a full year. Opposition Deputies have been going around the country addressing unfortunate people who have neither the time nor the opportunity to study statistics. They have told these people that we have abolished the dance tax and increased the price of butter. The majority of the people are not really so stupid as to accept that kind of propaganda. The people who have not the time to study statistics might well accept that statement, but the statement is ludicrous.
The butter subsidy costs £3,000,000 and the remission of the dance tax has saved £100,000. If we had left the dance tax as it was and added to it the existing subsidy it would have reduced the cost of food by about one farthing per head per week. It is really nonsensical stage Irish stuff to have Opposition Deputies trying to make unfortunate people believe that the dance tax remission is equivalent to the reduction of the subsidy in any of the items of food.
Another way of putting this matter might be to make the comparison with what the same money would bring if imposed on stout. The dance hall tax is roughly equivalent to 1d. on eight pints of stout. In view of the fact that many dances are run for reasonably laudable purposes, if we are going to have any intelligent discussion in the country in regard to the Budget the Opposition could at least avoid making ludicrous suggestions to the effect that the dance hall tax could seriously affect, by its remission, the cost of food in the country.
Deputy Dr. Browne made some interesting proposals. Not only did he deal with the dance hall tax but he also dealt with all the taxes on amusements. He suggested that we might, in the interests of the country, have increased the taxes on other forms of amusements. I think that is a fair criticism. It is something that has to be answered. I think it is even arguable. I have not got the figures for expenditure on amusements by the people of this country for the last two years. I have only the figures as published under the auspices of the last Government. I might add that the figures for expenditure on drink, tobacco and amusements, 5/6 per head per week in 1949, and a figure I am now going to give for entertainment, were both prepared under the auspices of the last Government.
In 1949, the public spent some £4,000,000 on all forms of amusement. It is quite obvious that on a total expenditure of £4,000,000 it is impossible to increase the existing taxes upon those amusements in any way which could materially affect the main facts of the Budget. In the last financial year I understand that the total receipts from betting, cinemas and dances were £2,000,000. It might be imagined that we could by a stretch of the imagination conceive an increase of taxation revenue of £600,000. I think that would be too much.
The most you could increase the £2,000,000 by—and I stand open to correction since the figures have not been checked — would be somewhere between £200,000, £400,000 and £600,000. You certainly could not go beyond £600,000 on the existing figure of £2,000,000. That again would have no ultimate material effect on the character of this Budget. If Deputies work the matter out for themselves they will find that £600,000 could only reduce the cost of food by less than 2d. per week if we add that £600,000 to the present taxation of £2,000,000 on betting, cinemas and dancing, although Dr. Browne may be right in saying that we might have taken some action in regard to all those three forms of amusement, the amount would have been very small and could not alter the general argument in regard to the rightness of this Budget.
Again, to give the public some idea of what they have had to face in regard to increases in costs, the loss on Córas Iompair Éireann is very nearly equivalent to something just under 2d. in the pint of stout — a very serious thing. It is very easy for Deputies to go round the country promising social services, promising the sun, moon and stars if they do not tell people what it is going to cost. The increases to civil servants, the Army and the Guards are equivalent approximately to 4½d. on a package of 20 cigarettes.
It is well for the public to appreciate that Government expenditure has become very high indeed, that the cost of these services is enormous. I wonder how many people realise that one in 20 of the people in this country are old age pensioners. It has become an extremely costly service. Fianna Fáil can say that with a clear conscience, because we effected every increase but one in the old age pensions from the figure at which they were when we took office. But the fact is that it is a costly service.
This year, before the Social Welfare Bill is passed and before the new allowances are given, people can reckon on this—it is definitely a rough figure— that every time they purchase a packet of 20 cigarettes 9d. of the price alone goes to the existing old age pensions. It is an enormous figure. We would have more co-operation from the public perhaps in regard to this Budget if the ordinary man in the street, instead of being told all this nonsense about the dance tax being equivalent to the butter subsidy, was told that the existing old age pensions cost them 9d. in every packet of 20 cigarettes.
Another fact of interest to the public would be that before the social welfare allowances are increased under the present Social Welfare Bill and before the new social welfare allowances come into being to offset the decreased subsidies, the social welfare services taken as a group, totalling about £18,000,000 last year, were roughly discharged by the total amount received from income-tax. It is useful to direct attention to this fact, because the social services are in a large measure a redistribution of income from the rich to the poor and it amounts to this: that practically all our income-tax is required to pay for these social welfare services before the increases which will take place under the present Budget.
A figure which should be drawn particularly to the attention of the House is the sum we shall have to pay for many years to discharge the loan we received from the American Government. Commencing in the financial years 1953-54, we shall have to pay, I think it is, £1.2 million every year for many years. It is equivalent to approximately 1½d. on the pint of stout and I think it would be an excellent form of intellectual entertainment if people who criticised the Budget were to discuss with their friends when they indulge in an occasional pint what they see around them to account for paying for years and years 1½d. on the pint in order to repay Marshall Aid. They might ask themselves whether perhaps there was a better way of spending the money. In any event they should bear in mind that there is that heavy impost. It is a very large impost. Nobody wants to pay 1½d. on every pint of stout to pay back a loan the whole of which has to be discharged in 2½ years from the time it was incurred without which the Budget could have been balanced. If we were to add on 1½d. on the pint of stout for the interest that will accrue at the end of every two years for new Marshall Aid loans, or any other loans, the price would be very prohibitive at the end of ten years. That is a very good illustration of the difficulty we have to find increasing debt charges, increasing expenditure, without the increase in production and the increase of exports to raise the yield of taxation so that no one would notice the impost upon them.
