I think the day of reckoning is coming. The Minister suggested in his speech that there was an need for rationalising the conciliation and arbitration system. I find myself in agreement with the Minister on this. The Minister presided over joint labour committees on the Labour Court and I was on the trade union side. Since then I think we have accepted that multiplicity within the industrial relations system is undesirable. It is time the four major arbitration boards covering the Civil Service, local authorities, teachers and gardaí and the other boards for the smaller groups were brought in under an expanded Labour Court system. This is a personal view. I have no doubt that after the consultations between the Minister and the public services committee of the ICTU and the other trade unions responsible for the other boards provided the Minister takes the initiative, there could be a major improvement in this field. I am aware of the fact that the staff previously rejected this proposal but I do not think that the concept of the Labour Court having a broader function and a broader overseeing involvement and a broader role generally has been spelled out sufficiently. It is regrettable that successive Ministers for Finance and the Department of Labour have been hesitant and lacking in confidence in taking this kind of exercise by the scruff of the neck and putting it on the table for negotiation, for agreement between themselves and the trade unions. The only man whom I saw able to do that, with due respect to Deputy Colley, was his immediate predecessor. He had this flair whether we liked it or not and if he had continued as Minister for Finance for the lifetime of the current Government he might well have brought it about.
In regard to the proposition in relation to the report of the public services organisation review group, one must again, in conscience, deplore the delay on the part of the Government in not implementing more expeditiously the various proposals made in the Devlin Report. The Minister's progress report is not something which one can be proud of. It lacks urgency. I am conscious that the Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill, 1971 has been circulated but it will be next year before we get down to having any real discussion on that and the other aspects of the report. Although this report contains immense difficulties for the Cabinet in terms of the allocation of power and function and negotiations with the public service, nevertheless, with our Budget growing dramatically each year the administrative machinery of the State is becoming more and more rusty, more and more antiquated and unresponsive to the needs in that area.
I am surprised that the Minister is merely hoping to raise £48 million of Exchequer requirements from the banking sector and £25 million from abroad during the current year. The Minister did say that in the past borrowing from the domestic banks was confined almost exclusively to the associated banks but in view of the growth of deposits in the other financial institutions an approach is now being made to the non-associated banks for part of the £48 million. The Minister should be more forthcoming. I should like to know some of the power play that went on in the allied banks and associated banks in recent weeks. It would make a very interesting column in the Financial Times. As public representatives we are entitled to more information than merely vague aspirations by the Minister about raising £48 million. He should indicate if this is merely a pious hope.
I do not entirely share the view expressed by Deputy Fitzpatrick that the Government are unduly preoccupied with foreign borrowing. This is now an essential ingredient of any Exchequer policy, providing the implications are fully recognised by the State. Such foreign borrowing carries responsibilities which were not spelled out in the Minister's speech. There is now a greater recourse to foreign borrowing. Apart from a speech some time ago by Deputy Haughey justifying the need for recourse to foreign borrowing periodically on the part of the State, and by the various State-sponsored organisations, I have not seen any current analysis of the state of the play, if I may call it that, by any Government Minister or by the Taoiseach.
I was very surprised that relatively few Members of the House were critical —as they should be critical and hypercritical—of the Minister's decision to abandon the reduced rate of tax on the first £100 of taxable income. His decision is to apply the standard rate. That is a deplorable decision. I consider it a most regrettable step. It is quite retrograde. The justification for that decision has not been given to the House in any detail. It is all very well to come into this House and say that everybody will pay £12 a year extra in tax or £1 a month.
Let us put that £12 a year in a different setting. If the Minister said in the Dáil that he was raising the social insurance stamp by 5s a week, there would be a howl of protest but that virtually is what he has done. He is taking a straight 5s a week from the lower and middle income groups. It is all very well to say that there are 650,000 taxpayers and that by virtue of certain changes in the income tax reliefs, that figure will be reduced by 20,000, but there are still 630,000 people who are caught in the tax net. A very large number of relatively poorly paid families are liable for tax. I think £20 or £25 a week is not handsome pay for a person who is rearing a family. Many of these people are liable for tax and they will be paying this £12 a year. The Minister implied that the families in the lower income group will not have to pay it. I do not think that stands up. It is a poll tax. It will bring in £5 million. It was a ridiculous decision.
Deputy Haughey brought in a very welcome change in relation to the first £100 of taxable income. This was a more egalitarian approach, a more supportable approach. I suggest that the vast majority of the lower paid workers will be caught by this new provision. In principle the Government's decision is regrettable and it is to be deplored. That aspect of the Budget has not been dealt with to the extent that it should have been by Opposition spokesmen. It is worthy of very serious consideration by the House.
I want to refer now to a hidden aspect of the Budget in relation to the increases in social insurance benefits. I suspect—and I challenge the Minister to correct me here and now—that there will be a substantial increase in the social insurance contribution rate next October. There is a tradition in the House that we have it well after the Budget. If my figures are correct there will be an increase of 3s in the stamp in about four months time. I think that decision has already been taken by the Minister for Social Welfare and the Government. This is one of the remaining parts of the Budget which are not in the Budget Statement. In the Minister's speech we had one-third of the Budget. We had the £12 tax provision. We had the increase on spirits. The third that is missing is the social insurance contribution increase which will come but which was not referred to.
Another point that is missing is the increase in insurance rates to cover the health proposals. Would the Minister spell out now how much each insured worker in the so-called middle income group will have to pay for the Government's proposals? The Minister said that the contribution income from the scheme is expected to be about £2 million in the present financial year. I am not quite sure on what date this is due to be brought in, but I would hazard a guess that it will bring in £5 million in a full year. That is a pretty hefty burden to place on a large number of insured workers. I submit that is an aspect of the Budget which many people have not taken into account in their analysis of it. I challenge the Minister very strongly to spell out the implications of his statement on health expenditure and the introduction of a scheme of compulsory health contributions. This is very necessary. Otherwise we are leading industrial workers and the insured population up the garden path.
The Tánaiste waxed eloquent about wage increases and so on. He overstated the position. I have not got the issue of The Economist with me contraining the article on the proposals for an incomes policy. I remember that they advised Mr. Carr to put a 12 months freeze on wages. The Tánaiste pulled up rather quickly and did not go into that territory. Some months ago The Economist took an entirely different view of the need for an incomes policy. The view of the British Prime Minister is that through sheer misery with 1,000,000 unemployed we will eventually accept his conception of an incomes policy. I do not share that view either.
I want to stress to the House very strongly in relation to wage increases that there has been a quite phenomenal increase in the collection by the State of income tax under PAYE. This should be pointed out. In 1965-66 the tax collected under PAYE amounted to £21.5 million. For 1970-71 the provisional figure is £63.2 million. When workers receive a substantial increase in wages there is a tremendous deduction under the income tax system. I do not particularly object to it provided the income tax system is fair and equitable. I do not think it is equitable and it could be very much improved. The Minister is fortunate that this growth to £63 million has taken place and has saved him from further financial embarrassment. When one recalls that surtax receipts have increased from £2.6 million to £3.8 million in the same period, the relative importance of the £63 million from tax collected under PAYE is appreciated. Perhaps the Minister might acknowledge that where wage increases are given workers do not benefit dramatically in the increased purchasing power given to them. I welcome the decision by the Minister to clamp down on the various tax avoidance devices. This is necessary and is long overdue.
In dealing with the social side of the Budget, I am concerned that it does not reflect any real indication on the part of the Government of any social conscience. It is the greatest example of haphazard, piecemeal planning in which the Government make up their minds as they go along. If deserted wives scream loud enough and long enough they may get something next year. When the widows quite rightly made their case in the past 12 months they got a concession in the Budget. However, the Minister is not reacting very generously to social pressures and he does not deserve the hosanna of credit he is trying to claim. I would have thought any Minister for Finance would, within the context of his own party's policy, take special care of the deprived sections of the community and those who are disadvantaged. I notice the Taoiseach used the classical social term in his contribution on television recently.
The Budget gives very little indication of any real social concern on the part of the Minister. Therefore, I reject entirely the proposition in the Budget Statement that the Government decided this year to improve the position of widows, deserted wives and dependent children. I do not see anything exceptional in what the Government have done. The provisions are sparse and the House should not be under any illusions about them. For a widow with a contributory pension— provided the regulations are met—she will receive from next October the princely sum of £5 for herself and £2 for two children, a total of £7 or £1 a day. I do not regard this as exceptional in a Christian community which professes tremendous social concern for the family. I wish some of the spotlight which has been devoted to Church/State relations and to family planning practices and so on could be given to the plight of a widow with two children living on £1 per day. From next October this will be her magnificent income. There is also the case of the deserted wife with three young children who must live on £1.05 per day. Having regard to these facts I do not think some of our priorities in terms of social concern measure up to the views that are expressed frequently.
The muddle regarding the unemployment assistance gives some indication of the Government's social thinking. I do not want to dwell on this subject because it has been more than adequately dealt with by Deputies Lenehan and Foley and other members of the Fianna Fáil organisation. I would make one point: it is disgraceful that any Government should, by implication, try to shift the blame to the public service staffs either in the Department of Finance or in the Department of Social Welfare. I am not privy to what happens at the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meetings or what happens at Cabinet meetings, but some of the attempts to shift blame to people who have neither the privilege nor opportunity of speaking in public is to be regretted and should not be tolerated in the administration of the State. The political heads of Government Departments are there to take the rap. If much less serious events occurred in other western democracies, the Ministers concerned would resign out of sheer personal shame, but in this country there appears to be an abundance of hard neck or, perhaps, an over-endowment of political ignorance. In this country Ministers continue to hold on to their positions and they must accept responsibility for mistakes made.
I suppose the most uncharitable and inhuman advice one could give to a person who is retiring at 65 years is that he would be well advised to die before he is 75 years, particularly if he must depend on a fixed income or on social assistance from the State, assuming that the Government remain in power. This is an aspect which does not show the conscience which Deputy Colley in earlier years was wont to flaunt very vigorously from here to Galway. In former years he would speak in the context of the policy of social development of Fianna Fáil. For a time I personally thought there was a great deal to it and then it dawned on me there could be young fogeys and old fogeys. However, the very minor treatment given by the Review of 1970 and Outlook for 1971 to the social development side of the Budget reflects some of the non-thinking of the Government in this sphere. The report itself said:
During the year interdepartmental examination of the basis appropriate for a comprehensive social development programme continued.
I would like to know something about that interdepartmental examination. The programme certainly continued and seems likely to continue but it does not seem to be producing very much at the moment. There is one statement I welcome:
The possibility of establishing a system of social indicators is receiving attention in the light of developments taking place abroad in this relatively new area.
It is relatively new in the context of the 1960s because one should not have to search that far if one wants to ask for the social indicators of the various reports to be produced on social development. I have not noticed any marked attempt on the part of the Department of Finance or on the part of the Cabinet to urge, for example, the Economic and Social Research Institute to expand its work dramatically as it should and produce some of the social indicators we need.
One has only to contrast the position in Ireland and in Northern Ireland, for that matter, with that in Great Britain. Certainly in the late 1960s and in the 1970-71 period a great deal more systematic social knowledge has become available in relation to social life in Britain and in Northern Ireland. This information is not available in relation to the Republic and our social programming is very much behind as a result. Throughout the 1960s there was a succession of publications in Britain documenting in very considerable detail facts about contemporary poverty in Britain. It should be possible to produce comparable reports in respect of this country. Some of these reports are from Government sources; others are from other official sources, for instance, the Circumstances of Family Report, the Plowden Report on Educational Deprivation and so on. Some of them came directly from the universities, others from the academic research departments, for example, the Abel Smith Report, the Townsend Report.
Much greater information should be available from State sources to assist Governments and politicians generally in making a breakthrough on the question of poverty in our community. It is about time we stopped the budgetary charade, which is about all it can be called, of providing an extra 50p for the windows, deserted wives and, hey presto, there is an approach towards a solution of poverty. It is a much more serious problem. The biggest problem facing the country is to make a breakthrough in budgetary thinking and in social thinking on the meaning of poverty and the kind of thinking behind giving an extra 50p to people "to improve their position exceptionally" in the Minister's phrase. Talking in those terms relates to the 1940s or 1950s; it is certainly not talking in terms of the changes that have occurred particularly among the social scientists in Britain, among the socially conscious section of the community in Britain and among the more liberally-minded section of this country. There has been a very considerable change in our concept of poverty and there needs to be a better appreciation of what constitutes poverty in modern society. If we do not get to grips with these problems now I cannot see that anything worthwhile would be achieved by the late 1970s.
A great deal of thinking behind Budgets over the years has been based on the concept of poverty at a subsistence level of the 1900s or certainly of a half-century ago. There is considerable need for a change in attitudes in that regard. I do not wish to speak at undue length but I wish to quote one authority in this connection, Richard Silburn, a lecturer in social science at Nottingham University. On the question of the concept of poverty he says:
What, in practical terms, does this mean? It means, for a start, that when discussing domestic budgeting, one should avoid making a priori judgments as to what is an acceptable outlay and what is not, what is a “rational” expenditure and what is not. In Rowntree's work such arrogance .... is seen at its most wretchedly parsimonious, but even today there is many a mandarine social worker or minor bureaucrat who is not advanced one jot in understanding or generosity. To plead for a more subtle appreciation of spending habits is not new; in 1954 Peter Townsend attacked Rowntree's shopping list and asked “If clothing, money for travel to work and newspapers are considered to be ‘necessities’ in the conventional sense, why not tea, handkerchiefs, laundry ... cosmetics, hairdressing and shaving, and life insurance payments.” More fundamentally, he suggested that “it may be that spending habits are determined by the conventions of the lowest stratum of society and by economic and social measures ... currently adopted by the community as a whole.
This should indeed be the decision of those who are concerned. He then went on to say, and I agree with him that if Rowntree was prepared to allow a wireless set in the 30s we should be prepared to allow a television set in the 1970s. Therefore I resent very much the cynical attitude of Deputy Dowling when he spoke about what the Government gave. He spoke about the wailing wall. A little bit of wailing does not do any harm at all. Indeed I would remind Deputy Dowling that he seemingly graduated successfully from the life of being a not terribly well paid tradesman in this country to the somewhat better life of being a Fianna Fáil Deputy from the Dublin South-West Constituency and is now I understand a rather well heeled auctioneer living in surburban Dublin. He should be the last to talk——
