I am glad to hear that. I am talking, not from the wine trade point of view, but from the point of view of the consumers. It does appear in its present incidence as being unfair on the consumer who might like a reasonable bottle of wine and not a very dear one. I hope also that the effect of the duty on wine will not be like that of the No. 2 Finance Act, 1947—the supplementary Budget of 1947—which for many years completely killed the wine trade and not merely prevented the Revenue getting the increased duty Deputy Aiken then Minister for Finance visualised in that supplementary Budget but, in addition, meant that for very many years afterwards, although the duty was brought back, the wine trade was non-existent and was not able to produce anything for Revenue.
The speech by the Minister yesterday and his arguments were, of course, based partly on some of the documents that were issued. I find it utterly impossible to reconcile at least one of the impositions that he made with any of those prognostications. The duty on hydrocarbon oils is a bad duty. It permeates through the whole economy. Particularly at the present time, it is one that is bound to cause some substantial aggravating cost and rise in internal costs. I do not know whether anybody has made an authoritative assessment of the amount of oil, using oil in the generic sense as covering petrol as well as diesel, used for pleasure as apart from business and commercial purposes. I remember not so very long ago no less a person than the Taoiseach giving it as his view that 80 per cent of the use of private cars was use by people for their business or to get to their business, that it was not use for pleasure as such. I do not think it is an unfair assessment. It is probably correct. Surely that is an additional charge at this moment that should have been and could have been avoided?
The Minister for Finance quite correctly has stated that at this moment we must do everything we possibly can to make certain that our industry and our exports in particular and our production will be competitive. While paying lip service to making our industries competitive in every way, he at the same time imposes what is in effect a charge on industry, except for the 20 per cent user to which I have referred. It is very significant that he has done it at exactly the same moment as his counterpart in Britain, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, has been deliberately devising the reverse of the Minister's action, has been deliberately devising a scheme by virtue of which transport costs will be cut, will be, if you like, subsidised by having certain of the indirect taxes on them removed for the purposes of making British exports competitive.
In a statement on 11th November last, Mr. Callaghan referred at some length to the duties on petrol and other oils which enter into the cost of manufacture for export. Because they did enter into that cost of manufacture, because he recognised, as every sensible person must recognise, that transport costs form a substantial part of the costs of manufacture, he decided to give a rebate in petrol and diesel oil duties to offset part of that cost. His counterpart here, the Minister for Finance, far from doing that, far from helping our people to become more competitive in exports, has decided to put an additional impost on them of 3d. a gallon. It shows that when framing his Budget, he was only paying lip service to the type of competitiveness that he mentioned.
I noticed Deputies opposite from the West of Ireland applauding the Minister at the end of his speech. If they read back over everything that has been said both from there and in any analysis of the position of the West of Ireland, they will find everywhere an acknowledgement that one of the difficulties about siting industry in the West is the additional cost of transport between the West and the heavy centres of population. This new imposition by the Minister for Finance yesterday will make it even more difficult to get manufacturing industry in the West of Ireland and makes nonsense of statements by the Government that they are really interested in the development of the West.
The effect of that imposition may seem small in one way. It will bring in £1,300,000 in the eleven months that are left of this financial year or £1,500,000 in a full year, but the effects of that over our whole internal costs in the economy will be substantially more than that £1,500,000. Therefore, I fear we shall go further on the road to making it difficult for our exporters to meet the fierce competition which they have to meet from other countries in endeavouring to keep their markets in Britain, notwithstanding the surcharge there, and to find new markets in the rest of the world. Without a satisfactory and successful effort by our producers to keep those new markets, we can completely abandon any hope of a rising standard of living.
The Minister, too, skimmed over lightly—and, I suppose, it was natural for him to skim over lightly the effects of his predecessor's actions insofar as they were unwise or unsuccessful actions—the Budget deficit of last year. One of the causes of the inflation which is around us at the moment is the fact that during the past three years the cumulative deficits of the Government's Budgets have been over £11 million. A Budget deficit of that size for these three years can only be likened to the action of a person attempting to put out a fire with a can of petrol. That £11 million has certainly had its effects, effects which we see all around us in rising prices. I am not so silly as to suggest it is the only cause. It is not, but it is one of the things which are responsible for rising prices and pull on our internal demand and on our balance of payments.
I find it difficult to understand why the Minister, in one publication, suggested that it was improper for him to take £4 million of the voted services and treat it as capital and, in another publication issued two days afterwards, to put that same £4 million on the "never-never" and treat it as capital expenditure, and even to do more, to add another £1,500,000 to capital services or what had up to this been regarded in the publications as being a current budgetary matter.
If it was true in one instance, why was it not true in the other? If it was correct to say on Friday last in the White Paper on the Capital Budget that this £4 million should be considered in relation to current budgetary problems and should be met out of current expenditure, why did the Minister not give any consideration yesterday to the aspect he had already mentioned? I suggest the reason was that the Minister for Finance was not allowed by his colleagues in the Government to carry out what he thought was the proper financial policy at the moment.
This Budget does nothing in relation to a variety of matters with which the people expected it to deal. It does nothing in relation to production, to stimulate or expand it. It does nothing in relation to employment, to stimulate or expand it. I cannot see how, without that stimulation of employment, there is to be a decrease in emigration. Without saying that the position of our balance of payments is such that we must do something at once, it does not seem to me that the Budget takes care of the dangers that everyone else sees around us.
Before I turn from the Budget provisions themselves, I want to express the regret that has been felt on two sides since the publication of the Budget Statement. The white collar worker felt that he was going to get some alleviation of his burden. In present times the tax-free allowance of £394 for a married taxpayer compares in figures with £310 in, say, 1954-55, but if the £310 in 1954-55 was adjusted to its equivalent on the basis of today's prices and today's income, that £394 should have been extended to £518. The personal allowance for a single person, which today stands at £234, was £150 ten years ago and on the basis of today's prices and income, the equivalent of that £150 is £294. I did not expect that the single allowance would be raised from £234 to £294, but I did expect some increase. I think everybody expected there would be some increase in the marriage allowance and that the tax-free allowance for a man and his wife would be increased from £394. That was last changed only because the reduced rate of tax was being abandoned.
Does anybody believe that an allowance of £60 for a dependent relative is a fair tax-free allowance in present circumstances? Does anybody believe that an allowance of £120 for a child is an allowance that gives anyone in the tax-paying brackets any opportunity of making the kind of provision he would wish for his child? The plain fact of the matter is that with the enlargement of the PAYE net in order to cover so many people, the tax now paid under the heading of income tax is not merely a tax on the welloff but a tax that hits in particular the white-collar worker and that position is one that should be alleviated by an extension of the allowances to a more realistic figure. Late as it is now, I hope the Minister will be able to see his way, between now and the Finance Bill, to relieve the lot of those people in the lower brackets who have, unfortunately, to bear the brunt.
I said this Budget does nothing to stimulate employment. What are the facts in relation to employment? In 1964 the total number of people at work was 1,059,000, admittedly 3,000 up on 1963 but down on 1959, down still further on 1958, and down still further on 1957. When the Taoiseach comes to speak, will he tell us why now, after ten years of government by Fianna Fáil, he has not yet put into operation his famous plan to provide jobs for 100,000 people within a period of five years? In the early years of this period of Fianna Fáil government, his excuse was that he was not able to do it because of the circumstances he found when he returned to government. He has had ten years now to put that plan, if there ever was a plan, into operation, ten years in which to provide these extra 100,000 jobs for our people, assuming he was serious when he made his prognostication and not just looking in a cheap way for votes.
Where is there anything in this Budget to stimulate employment? Where is there anything in this Budget accepting or developing the plan of the NIEC? That body made it clear that it was essential that something should be done towards the improvement of employment. They said: "The total employment, however, does not seem to be rising at the rate envisaged in the Second Programme." Yet, one sees nothing in the Budget which would act as an economic stimulus towards providing increased employment and nothing to indicate that the Government accept the suggestions put forward or have even considered them. The Budget should be used as a weapon for the forging of the economic policy of the Government of the day, the policy of the Government wish to put into operation. On the entire economic front, this Budget is singularly silent. It is true that, unless there is some stimulation of employment and some stimulation of those industries which have a high employment content, so that they will not be entirely dependent on the home market, we will not be able in the years ahead to cope not only with the drift from the land, which the Government have estimated at 66,000 people, but with the natural increase in the population in the years ahead.
Apart from all that, even if it were a question merely of getting going, the Government might be in a position to say it would not be desirable to provide anything further in the way of stimulus at the present time, but the statistics and the prognostications show that that is not the case. The projection of the national income the Minister has put on the Table shows an increase in national income of about two-thirds of the increase in 1964 in percentage terms. Does the Minister not think that is something that should be taken into account. The relative drop from £88 million to £65 million, expressed in terms of percentages on the year for which it is operative, is a drop from 13 per cent to 8½ per cent. Does the Minister not think, that is something in relation to which a Budget intended to be used as an economic weapon should provide something concrete and something certain to stimulate agricultural production and establish a fairer relationship as between agricultural and other incomes? The Budget has failed to do that.
The Minister read this morning the comment of the NFA. I am surprised the NFA were so foolish as to believe the collective word of Fianna Fáil. There are many Ministers in the Fianna Fáil Government who, as individuals, are men of their word. When they get together, however, they seem to forget all their individual characteristics and they throw overboard any undertaking, if it suits them. The NFA, a responsible body, alleged to-day that there was a firm undertaking given by the Government in relation to rates on agricultural land. There is nothing in this Budget which honours that undertaking. There was not a single mention in the Budget speech of the word "rates" notwithstanding that we all know everybody will have to pay very substantial increases in rates this year and that that increase will bear more heavily, perhaps, on the small farmer than on anyone else, the small farmer who is trying to eke out an existence at subsistence level.
Frankly, I am also disappointed that the premium milk estimate is so small. It shows the Minister for Agriculture must anticipate a very small amount of milk coming in as high quality milk. Only £400,000 has been provided for the scheme, a scheme undoubtedly worthwhile and one for which there has been some substantial demand during the year.
The increases suggested in relation to agricultural income of some £12 million this year are, even on their face value, ones of live horse, get grass. They are all increases that will arise solely because of the build-up of agricultural stocks. Farmers living at subsistence level cannot afford to wait if it is for an increase in stock values of that sort. I say that, accepting for the purposes of the argument the figures put forward by that side. On the other hand, the NFA have made it clear they do not accept those figures. They believe there will be a worsening of agricultural incomes by some £4 million this year. Be that as it may, it is quite clear in this Budget the Minister is not concerned with any effort to improve or alleviate agricultural incomes.
We come now to Table 13 in the Progress Report. One sees there a savage drop in the total of savings and capital formation. There is a relative drop from £41 million to £19 million and a percentage drop from 27 to ten. The only suggestion the Minister has in relation to meeting that is the National Bonds issue he has announced. I hope that issue will be a success. I do not take the view Deputy MacEntee took when I announced the Prize Bonds. He linked it to running the State on a raffle. That was a highly mischievous, irresponsible remark by Deputy MacEntee, the spokesman for finance in the Fianna Fáil Party at that time. I do not take that view but, at the same time, I do not think the announcement the Minister made yesterday will be sufficient to bring the total of savings and capital formation up to a figure that would be satisfactory to meet our present needs. Let me repeat that I hope it is a success. I will put a little, very little, money into it and hope the Minister will ensure that my bond will be drawn out at an early date.