At the same time as he talks about the taximen, he says it is quite reasonable to impose on them an increase of 10/- in the cost of their driving licences. I am completely opposed to this increase, because here again we have a continuation of all the viciousness associated with the extraction of money from the people, of whom Fianna Fáil have now become the masters. They hit, in the first instance, with a Supplementary Budget a limited section of the community— they went for the smoker and the consumer of beer or whiskey. Now they have singled out another section for the relentless heel of the oppressor.
They call it "changes in motor taxation". They can call it whatever they like, but it is only a device whereby to extract, in an nonbudgetary way, money from the people. I have put in an amendment which I will get an opportunity of moving later, suggesting a reduction in the cost of driving licences, for the simple reason that motorists are the one section who have, on the one hand, to bear the grossly unfair increases in taxation and, on the other, pay a 100 per cent. increase in the cost of driving licences.
With pious unctuousness, Deputy Cowan talks about the reason for giving this Resolution to the Minister to-night, and suggests that there should be unanimity in the House, but the reason given by the Minister for the necessity for this Resolution is sheer poppycock, and nobody knows it better than the Minister himself. Driving licences are renewable annually from the day on which they were taken out, and their expiry date is the evening of the previous day in the following year, and it is ridiculous to suggest that there is an urgency as between 3 o'clock this evening and 10.30 to-night about getting that Resolution through. The motor taxation offices all over the country were closed at the time the announcements were made, and even if the Minister were to be delayed an extra 24 hours, the advantage that could be taken of it would be microscopic This is the self-same Government who are now seeking to extract £135,000 extra by way of doubling the charge for driving licences as handed back to their pals, the dance-hall proprietors, a sum of £140,000 because it was too difficult to collect. Where is the sanity in that type of Government activity? In this case, in the main, the persons whom they will ask to carry the heavy cost of tax increases over a wide range of vehicles are those whom they will also tax through the 100 per cent. increased cost of driving licences.
The Minister for Finance in the present Government, using, with a certain amount of adroitness, the Department of Local Government, is seeking virtually £1,000,000 through this device. The pious statement is made by the Minister for Local Government that it will in some way ease the burden of rates for the people because there will necessarily be a greater grant out of the Road Fund for road-making. That is a rather naïve suggestion, particularly when one realises, having regard to the Finance Accounts of 1952, that the motorists, between taxation on vehicles and on petrol, made the substantial contribution of nearly £12,000,000 to the revenue last year.
If the Minister is in earnest about giving subvention-in-aid to the Road Fund for the maintenance of roads, to relieve the burden of rates on local councils, there is a more equitable system of doing it than this method. Would it not be reasonable to apportion some part of the revenue derived from motor vehicles and heavy transport vehicles through taxation of light and heavy hydrocarbon oils and petrol to the Road Fund?
In this particular nasty bit of financial jugglery, Fianna Fáil have singled out a limited section to hit hardest. We can give back £140,000 as a present to the dance-hall proprietors, but we will impose on an already overtaxed and overburdened hackney system an additional £56,000.
I am not going to suggest for one moment that it is impossible to bear certain of the taxes but I shall not be like Deputy Peadar Cowan, trying to juggle on both sides of the fence. It is a heinous, filthy effort by the Government to try to take from that limited section—the hackney owners and taxi- men—£56,000 extra by this device, to say nothing of the extra couple of thousand pounds that they will take from the same section in the increased cost of driving licences. That will be no credit to this House if it is passed into law but it is typical of the intellect, mind and financial approach of the Government that conceived it.
I shall not make any bones about the fact that I oppose this White Paper completely because it is creating the undesirable and unpleasant precedent of using a device such as this. There was a short statement in the Budget statement that we would have tax extraction par excellence, by a Government that was afraid to bring in any type of Supplementary Budget but which uses this device to avoid the necessity for doing that.
The proposal to increase the cost of driving licences by 100 per cent. at this moment is just another indication of the viciousness of the financial policy of the Government. For 12 months it was discrediting the country generally, depressing our credit, critical of borrowing, critical of certain developments. Having worked up that atmosphere, they swallow everything holus polus and go for a loan of unprecedented size at an unprecedented rate of interest and they get it. Now, having had to abandon their denial of the economic soundness of financing certain capital projects from borrowing, they find themselves in the position that they have to seek money for other types of current expenditure and here is the device, conceived in shame and brought to light in a most discreditable manner. The Minister for Local Government, with the responsibility of office on his shoulders, comes in clamouring for Resolution No. 1 to-night on the most spurious and the most shallow possible foundation.
Pious Deputy Cowan says something about 10/- in 1926 being the same as £1 in 1952, that the country will not object to it. Has the same pious Deputy taken the least care to examine the amount that has been extracted from the motoring section of the community in the interim? Year after year every expense in connection with motoring, whether it be the cost of petrol, road tax or repairs, has risen steeply. Apparently it is the Government's view that this is the section of the community that can be most easily oppressed and from whom it is easiest to extract money. On this occasion it is not on the back that is best able to bear the burden that the load is placed. The main viciousness of the thrust is against a limited section of the community and Deputy Norton did not overpaint the picture when he described their conditions.
The existence of the hackney owner or taximan to-day is, at best, precarious. Is that particular section in any way equipped to carry the burden of £56,000 extra? I do not think so. It would serve a very useful purpose if many Deputies of the Party opposite would consider the individual merits of the particular section that will be hit.
I shall not cavil at an increase in taxation that may hit certain types of motor cars. That is not the burden of our complaint against this system. First of all, our complaint is against the method and the technique used to extract money. Secondly, we take a firm stand on behalf of a very oppressed section of the commuity who will be nearly harassed out of existence if the impositions now contemplated are put into effect.
Take the question of roads and road maintenance, which the Minister is trying to use as the gambit to inflict these impositions. Are certain types of traffic or certain sections of the community to carry the burden of that maintenance or is it to be distributed in a more equitable fashion? Deputy Cowan endeavoured to distort and twist certain suggestions made by the Leader of the Labour Party—Deputy Norton—apropos of certain heavy vehicles. I was listening during the course of all this debate and the reference made by Deputy Norton was to vehicles of the 20 ton unladen weight calibre carrying immense loads of heavy goods that might be diverted to the traffic-starved railways. That is something that merits a lot more consideration than the pietistic stupidity of Deputy Cowan.
A very serious problem is created when very heavy vehicles use roads not fit to carry them. It is quite true that the incidence of costs in road maintenance has gone up considerably. What is the true position? Why are we constantly talking about the Road Fund when, in fact, millions of pounds belonging to that fund have been used for purposes other than roads. We are now trying to repair the ravages made on that fund by successive Governments by putting most of the burden on the backs of the motoring community. When I say the motoring community, I mean that the burden is being carried, in the main, by people who are carrying goods, using lorries, hackney cars, or taxis. We are looking for money from this limited section of the community when, in fact, the fund that needs to be reconstituted has been robbed systematically and consistently over a period. What is the real explanation of the difficulty?
Is it not true to say that now is not the time or that this is not the way in which the Government should deal with the problem of road maintenance? It is not the duty of the Government to try to crush out vehicles by imposing taxation by way of road tax. It is their duty to conceive and direct a policy whereby vehicles will not be allowed to operate where, in the considered opinion of the Government, their weight and type makes it impossible for our Irish roads to carry them. What will come about in the final analysis? The weak will be pushed out and the strong will be able to survive and ultimately extort, by way of increased charges, the full burden of these increases from the distribution costs of industry throughout the country.
We have got to face this White Paper on the basis of the amount of taxation that each particular type and class of vehicle can bear. In my view, it would serve a useful and a practical purpose if the Government would reconsider in toto the question of increasing by 100 per cent. the cost of licences and would review in toto the question of the burden imposed on hackney men and on taximen.
As regards lorries, we have a clear anomaly; the Government is talking in one breath about a Bill to remove restrictive practices and yet, with a concealed viciousness, they are introducing, by means of additional taxation, a restriction that will effectively curtail the use of lorries. Is it reasonable or fair to allow that particular type of viciousness to go unchallenged? We do not intend to allow that in this House. It does not matter what pious hopes may be cherished in the expansive bosom of Deputy Cowan. Tooth and nail, every inch of the way, the Opposition will fight every one of these proposals because they are ill-conceived and are placing a burden on a limited section of the community without having any consideration for the realities of the situation.
Apparently, Deputy Cowan could see no merit in the fact that Deputy Mulcahy indicated a repercussion already felt in vocational schools in connection with trainees for garages and for the motor trades generally. Motorists and lorry owners can be taxed to saturation point. This Government has already adopted that practice in connection with cigarettes, beer and tobacco and they are already feeling the pinch; despite vicious taxes on these commodities they are not getting increased revenue.
Is it the Government's desire to crush many of the 23,000 lorry owners out of business? If it is, why do they not come out like men and say so? Why use these unpractical and heinous methods of eliminating them? Many of these men are committed in a very heavy way for hire purchase repayments and many of them are making a very limited income with their trucks. How are they going to bear this additional burden, or is the Government completely unconcerned as to whether or not distribution costs go up? Is it the Government's idea to "grab while you can and grab as much as you can"? That is certainly clearly indicated in this White Paper.
I feel that the Government would be well advised to return this document to the secret recesses from which it was unearthed and to bury it there again. In the final analysis, this is but a loophole out of the task of bringing in a demand for extra money by way of a Supplementary Budget. It is opening up an avenue through which the Irish people can be taxed, but it is a dangerous avenue. It is placing different sections of the community in the position that they do not know when the blow will fall on them. This is something that would have been honestly met if the Minister for Finance faced up to his own responsibility instead of making a catspaw or a puppet out of the Minister for Local Government for his purpose.
I am strongly opposed to the increased burden that will have to be borne by people operating two-ton to five-ton trucks in this country. In the main, many of these lorries are individually owned, operated by one person who is making a living for himself and his helper and their families. These people deserve better consideration from the Government. May I say, for the information of Fianna Fáil Deputies, that they will get a rude awakening later because many of these people were at one time loyal adherents of that Party?
A person who has already had to bear the burden of increased petrol costs, increased repair costs, increased costs of tyres and tubes, is now to be crushed out of existence by this additional tax. This proposal is typical of the Government that conceived it, and I prophesy that it will die in the shame in which it was born.
