It is with pleasure and a deep sense of responsibility for the importance and urgency of this matter that I rise to support the motion. Let me say at the outset none of us objects to paying his fair share of income tax in this country. We realise this money is essential to maintain the services of our country but we are entitled to insist that such direct taxation is apportioned in a fair and an equitable manner with due regard to the ability of the people to pay and that obviously it should be placed squarely on the shoulders of those people able to bear that burden.
We are concerned that no section of the community should be singled out for preferential treatment, as is the position in this country, nor should a system be tolerated any longer which systematically robs the working class people of this country of a grossly unfair share of their hard-earned money, thereby causing frustration and very great hardship to individuals which in the long term stultifies initiative and effort towards maximum productivity and gravely endangers the economic welfare of the country as a whole.
I contend that the working classes are carrying this country on their backs, that they are the real producers of the wealth of this country and that it is grossly unfair and the height of ingratitude to them for their sustained effort that they should be singled out for exploitation for so long, without relief or redress of any kind, since this system was introduced a number of years ago. I rise here today to bring home to the Taoiseach, who is, I am glad to say, present, and to his Government in no uncertain terms that the unmitigated scourge of income tax is now a source of grave unrest among working people in this country. It has become a fundamental issue of social justice which calls for immediate redress.
The intolerable burden of income tax on the backs of the working class people in this country is causing widespread indignation. They are seething with discontent and the situation is reaching boiling point. If the Taoiseach and the Government fail to recognise this area of discontent in our country and if they do not bring about the relief we are calling for, they do so at their own peril. The Government can no longer treat all the workers of this country caught up in the net of PAYE in the way they have been treating them—with impunity. This kind of treatment of the working class people under PAYE has gone on so long without relief of any kind that it has got to come to an end.
An opportunity will be presented to the Taoiseach very soon in the coming Budget to give the reliefs which we call for now. The Government can provide in the Budget, as a first essential, a substantial increase in the personal and dependent relative allowances by increasing the ceiling of £6 10s for single persons and approximately £10 in respect of married persons to a more reasonable figure and to generally relate this income tax code to the steep increase in the cost of living and the fall in the value of money.
This is something which the Government have failed to take into account for the past eight years despite the spiral of costs in the interim period. The Government will have to come down from their ivory tower and realise, once and for all, that to tax a single man, woman, boy or girl on every £1 earned above £6 10s a week is a national scandal, highly disincentive and frustrating and the cause of widespread hardship. It is again patently unjust, and cannot be defended, to tax a married man on every £1 he earns over a sum of £10 a week. Is it seriously suggested that £6 a week for a single worker and £10 for a married couple is sufficient to maintain them with the present high cost of living?
Despite the steep increase in the cost of living it must be remembered the class we speak for here, the mass of our working class people, are caught in the net of PAYE and already contribute their full share towards the economy of our country. They continue to pay their full share of indirect taxation of all kinds in respect of purchase tax and turnover tax, in rent and rates and indeed on all commodities of life in respect of clothing, foodstuffs, petrol, drink and tobacco. All of us in the working class movement are paying more than our proportionate share of revenue by this indirect method without having to be fleeced directly under PAYE.
The Government simply cannot burn this candle at both ends. I want to assert in the presence of the Taoiseach that the burden of income tax deducted on a weekly basis under PAYE is no longer a painless extraction of money from the wage packets or, more appropriately, out of the pockets of the working class people. Indeed, it is causing great hurt, great injury, deep and bitter. We suggest that this rifling of the pockets of the working class must stop.
Earned income allowance for a single person has remained static at £234 for a long number of years as has the earned income allowance for a married person at £394. The dependent relative allowance of approximately £60 is being gradually whittled away by the application of a means test based on the income of the dependant.
There are flagrant injustices in the present code. The only reliefs granted in recent years were to the advantage of the mohaired executives earning in excess of £2,500 per annum. There has been relief for the surtax-paying element only and no relief has been given to the ordinary working class. There are tax free allowances for the upper classes, the executive type to whom I have referred, in respect of the use of company cars and sundry expenses, but no relief is provided for the ordinary worker who has to travel to work daily, for whom some mode of conveyance is a necessity, whether it be a motor car, a motorcycle or a scooter. There is no recognition of the cost of transport for our class but there is in the case of the mohaired class. We must ask where the justice is in the system.
There is no relief for married persons, for whom the high cost of living presents great difficulties, in respect of rent, rates and taxes and debts incurred through death, adversity or misfortune. There is no relief in the case of a single man living alone in respect of a housekeeper. There is no allowance applicable in the case of a single person who may be obliged to live away from home and who must pay for lodgings and for travelling and other incidental expenses. There is no allowance in the case of a worker for attendance at a university at night. This is an aspect which the Taoiseach should attend to. Some relief should be provided for such people who are helping themselves and the country by their attendance at a university in their spare time.
The allowances generally need to be increased as a matter of urgency to more realistic figures. The existing allowances would not maintain a human being in even frugal comfort, would not provide a subsistence level of existence. In fact, one would hardly maintain a dog on the allowances.
This vicious system affects all our working class people, to whom great hardship has accrued. Imagine the position of the poor unfortunate farm labourer who is obliged to pay approximately 7/- on every £ he earns over £6 10s 0d a week. He pays this penal tax while his employer, the farmer, pays no income tax at all. The farm worker is supposed to be full of energy and enthusiasm and to work every day, including holidays and Sundays, overtime, as the case may be. Is it seriously suggested that he should do this for the love of the farmer or for the love of the country, knowing that at the end of the week most of his extra earnings will go to the tax man? Is it any wonder that agricultural production has been relatively static for a long period? Instead of taxing these unfortunate people, would it not be better to give them a bounty, a slice of the colossal subsidies which are spent, or misspent, on agriculture? How much more beneficial would it be to give these people a real stake in the wealth which they create rather than penalise them as they are penalised under the income tax code? A worker, whether he be a tradesman, a labourer, an industrial worker, cannot be expected to work harder in order to attain higher productivity, however attractive the incentives may be, if at the end of the week he has to pay additional income tax.
This issue must be viewed in its broadest context as being not merely an individual problem but a problem which is increasingly affecting the welfare of the country. The workers for whom we now seek relief realise that they are being called upon to bear an unfair and disproportionate amount of income tax as compared with the rest of the community. One large section of the community is exempt from income tax. The really wealthy section have ways and means of evading income tax. They are not caught up in the tight mesh of PAYE, as are the people whose incomes to the last penny are known to the Revenue Commissioners. There are large sections of professional people who would receive for a half day's work fees amounting to the average worker's weekly wage. They are not involved in the PAYE system. It is a matter very largely for themselves to indicate their real income and I should think it is difficult for the Revenue Commissioners to ascertain their real income.
Clearly, then, one section, the working classes, are being asked to bear the real brunt of the burden, a burden that has become too heavy, too inequitable and utterly unjust. We are appealing to the Taoiseach tonight to apply the scales of justice and fair play in this matter. A review is long overdue.
It is difficult to imagine why certain sections of our working classes are kept outside the PAYE system. I refer to State employees such as forestry workers and members of the Defence Forces. I do not understand why these persons should be categorised with higher civil servants. It would be a great facility to them if they could pay income tax on a weekly basis rather than be called upon to pay large lump sums at the end of the financial year.
Income tax is something that we have come to accept. We appreciate that it is a necessary and inevitable device, an essential feature of fiscal policy in all countries. What we seek here is a fair apportionment of this direct tax.
The movement that we represent was the first to laud the idea of PAYE and to prompt the Government to introduce it. We little thought, though, that it would be applied in such a rigid, unimaginative and unalterable, as it would seem, way, with no regard for costs or the fall in the value of money. My own union was the first to propose this motion to Congress a number of years ago. Congress made known its view to the Government and the Government brought in PAYE. The same union which lauded it then condemns it now because it has failed to do what we expected it would do for the working classes—operate fairly and impartially. Consequently, we make no apology now for condemning it roundly as an archaic and outmoded system which has not kept pace with the changing times, which is causing very great hardship and frustration to our working class people and threatens to destroy the whole economic fibre of the nation if it is not revised and revised very soon.
I look forward with hope and enthusiasm to the coming Budget to bring reliefs to all those people for whom we are pleading here tonight. The concessions in the past have not been for these classes. They have been for the executive, sur-tax class. We should now have regard to the real producers of the wealth of this country and give them a chance to avail of the productivity incentives and to attain the all-round productivity which the economy so badly needs.
If we give the workers this encouragement we can expect them to respond and respond happily. This is the topic of the day; this is a burning issue, and those who blind their eyes to this issue are living in an ivory tower. It is high time they came down to reality and revised these figures upwards in accordance with present-day costs.
With these sentiments I commend this Motion to the House with enthusiasm and with pride. My colleague, Deputy Tully, will be replying for the Party, and we look forward to hearing the views of the Taoiseach as well. I hope he will be able to give us some gleam of hope for a better deal for the people for whom we plead here tonight.