When I moved to report progress we were dealing with item No. 4 on the expenditure side of the table explanatory of the current Budget, 1952. The Minister described my approach towards that item as something savouring of misrepresentation if not of fraud. Anyone who had read item No. 4 would have come to the same conclusion as I did. Anyone who is accustomed to considering how financial matters are dealt with in documents knows how necessary it is to indicate the purpose for which a sum is required and for which taxation will become necessary. I have been accused of leaving out the words "and for other current services" which follow after the words: "Provision for proposals in Social Welfare (Insurance) Bill, 1951."
As I said, those words were there for anybody to read and everybody had those documents before him. I assumed that the words "and for other current services" had some reference to the words that were given before them "provision for proposals in Social Welfare (Insurance) Bill, 1951," and that the entire item No. 4 had reference to proposals for social welfare and matters in connection with social welfare that might occur during the year. I suppose it is not right in a document of this kind to approach this interpretation in too technical or legalistic a sense, but there is a principle of interpretation of documents which is summarised in the Latin phrase noscitur a sooiis. In other words, you construe words from the company in which they are found. The words “other current services” are found in the context and the company of “Provision for proposals in Social Welfare (Insurance) Bill, 1951,” and I think it would be reasonable to assume that the whole of that item had something to do with social welfare.
Leaving that aside, I pointed out, in the course of my remarks on the discussion on the General Resolution, that Deputy Dr. Ryan, Minister for Social Welfare, in his speech on the Social Welfare Bill, had shown that the amount that would be required for social welfare under that Bill would be something less than £2,000,000. The Minister for Finance, in his closing speech at column 943 of the debate of the 1st May, 1952, says that there would be something less than £2,000,000, namely, about £1,900,000, leaving £1,100,000 of this £3,000,000 in item No. 4.
What is it for if it is not for social services? What is that £1,100,000 put in for? Nobody would know what it meant if it were not for the casual reference of the Minister for Social Welfare in his speech on the Bill dealing with social security measures. This £2,000,000 is now stated by the Minister for Finance to be £1,900,000. The position, therefore, appears to be that on that item there is £1,100,000 unaccounted for. It appears to be the case now, according to the Minister for Finance, that £1,100,000 is unaccounted for and was unaccounted for until we raised the point of what it was for.
The unfailing practice in connection with Budget proposals and expenditure of money is that where these proposals appear in a document the purpose for which the money is required has to be indicated. To the present moment nobody knows what that £1,100,000 is required for. The Budget debate went on for weeks and the Minister concluded the debate without giving the slightest indication of what that money was required for. That £1,100,000 is, in my submission to the Dáil, a surplus—part of the surplus I have referred to as being created by these proposals. Nobody knows what it is for. The debate that has gone on here is an admission that the £1,100,000 is on the loose. Nobody knows what it is for. Nobody has said what it is for. We are entitled to ask for an explanation of why the traditional practice in connection with items of this character involving the expenditure of public money and the requisition of that money from the taxpayers has been abandoned.
I have already told the House and demonstrated that the Estimates, as compiled in the Volume of Estimates for the public services for the financial year 1952-53, have been inflated to the amount of £7,500,000. Here there is a sum of £1,100,000 added to that inflated amount for unspecified services. Nobody knows what it is for and this Dáil would not have known anything about that £1,100,000 if the point had not been raised. What is that but a surplus? In the course of the debate the only indication that was given by any Minister as to what that £1,100,000 was for was by Deputy Dr. Ryan who, I think, said it had something to do with the Housing Bill. The amount that he put in in connection with housing was only £100,000 to £150,000 to cover an item of £1,100,000 for unspecified purposes. The very fact that the only item that could be given was for housing is in itself very revealing. It reveals the entire attitude that is behind this Budget.
If the Minister is correct and if his colleagues are correct in stating that they are taking over our capital programme—housing forms part of our capital programme—that £100,000 to £150,000 which the Minister for Social Welfare thought of to cover at least part of the nakedness of the £1,100,000 that was never explained is not payable out of revenue at all. It is payable out of capital.
The Minister for Social Welfare, at columns 1529-30 of the Official Debates of the 4th April, 1952, made some very interesting suggestions. He says: "We speak in millions of £s." We speak in millions of £s. We do not bother with merely £100,000 or £150,000. Millions are what we speak in. Millions are what is being asked from the taxpayers. They speak in millions of £s, but they have got more millions from the taxpayers, and the proof of that is revealed by the fact that the sum of £1,100,000 is unexplained. Through the whole course of this debate nobody has given any precise indication of what that is for except by speaking of millions of £s— extracted unnecessarily from the taxpayer. He goes on to say:—
"We have £3,000,000 as a cover against Deputy McGilligan's £1,500,000. There are other contingencies to be provided for——"
He puts in another suggestion out of the blue, a ridiculous suggestion.
"——such as stores."
Stores, of course, are part of the reserve stocks to which I was referring earlier. He could not think of anything else, and said "such as stores". They should have been provided for in this Book of Estimates or by a separate item, specifically stating what the money was for instead of by this slipshod remark of the Minister's. He winds up by saying:—
"I am quite sure that the Minister for Finance could give the House a long list of contingencies that are covered by that £1,000,000."
The Minister for Finance, however, did not give a list long or short.
If that £1,100,000 was—as it was—an afterthought intended to provide for contingencies that should have been specifically stated in this table explanatory of the current Budget, at least the contingencies should have been indicated either in specific terms or even in a general way. In the context of this Budget, containing such harsh impositions even on the Minister's own admissions—indeed even if the Budget were justifiable—the Minister should have been in a position to say: "We have cut down every bit of unnecessary expenditure and we will not raise taxation except for what is necessary." That £1,100,000 which now appears as an afterthought for contingencies has not been justified, because the Minister and the Government do not know for what it is wanted, and cannot tell us. Under that head alone £1,100,000 too much taxation is imposed upon the people. The Minister for Finance is not able to tell us what it is for. The Minister for Social Welfare took a stab at it and all he could say was "such as stores" as well as something about houses which are financed more appropriately as capital items than in any other way. There you have £1,100,000 which should be taken out of this Budget. In a Budget of this kind which imposes so many hardships it is a big sum. It could go a long way towards relieving those impositions. If you added the £140,000 which might be taken from the dance hall proprietors you would have a big whack of money.
The Minister spent a long while to-day denouncing the tax on dance halls showing, or purporting to show, that it was an unjustifiable imposition. The fact that the Minister for Finance who, as one of his colleagues in the Government said, speaks in millions, spent a long while speaking of £140,000, reveals how keenly he and his colleagues feel the criticism directed against the relief of the dance hall proprietors.
It may be that a case could be put forward against the tax on dances; it may be that arguments could be put forward—as they were, in fact, put forward to Deputy McGilligan as Minister for Finance by the Revenue Commissioners—to continue that imposition as it was a source of growing revenue; but in this Budget, where terrible taxes are being imposed, every penny should be saved, and it would be better to save that £140,000 than to increase the price of bread or of other essential commodities. When you add £140,000 to £1,100,000 you get almost £1,250,000, which should have been used to relieve these unjust taxes. The Minister dealing or purporting to deal with this matter referred in the course of his remarks, in columns 493 and 494 on the 1st May, 1952, to other sums that had been put in by previous Minister for Finance to deal with increases in the supply services, unforeseen increases in supply expenditure or contingencies. My first comment on those arguments is that they are entirely unrelated to the present item. In the Budget provisions for 1949-50 £670,000 was provided to cover "unforeseen increases in supply expenditure", and in the Budget of 1950-51 £600,000 was provided to cover "increases in the supply services". Each of those items was specifically stated and described. Everybody knew what it was for.
