I beg to move the estimate of the amount required in the year ending 31st March, 1923, to pay the Salaries and Expenses of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce including Umpire and Courts of Referees, Contributions to the Unemployment Insurance Fund and to Special Schemes and to the Unemployed Workers' Dependants Fund and Payments to Associations under the Unemployment Insurance Acts. The amount is £228,756.
ESTIMATES. - MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE.
In reference to the item under the heads of Industry and Commerce I would like to ask the Minister if he could possibly arrange with the Railway Companies, so that migratory labourers going to England and Scotland as they do annually from my constituency and some of the neighbouring constituencies could be carried backwards and forward at reduced fares. I may point out that the railway fare at the present time, though perhaps a comparatively small amount of money, is a very large sum to these men. They have very little money going away but they bring back very considerable amounts of money which they spend in the country, and it should not be cut into, if possible, as it is at present with excessively high railway fares. Another question I would like to have answered is this; whether provision could not be made for the encouragement of shipping in the future in Ireland. It is well known that the workers in the shipping industry should receive encouragement as well as those engaged in ordinary labour. All the theories of the professors in the country will never work out unless you have the brawn and enterprise that will carry these theories to their successful conclusion, and at the present time there is no encouragement to enterprise in this country either to the ordinary labour or to shipping. The shipping is mainly owned by foreigners, and so far as encouraging that enterprise goes the assistance or encouragement given to it is infinitesimal. We hope there will be a change in the future and we would very much like to know if the Ministry of Labour and Commerce have arrived at any scheme which they could produce to this Dáil for the encouragement of the shipping industry of this country.
You can hardly ask the Minister to produce a scheme now for the future. We can have criticism of the administration of the Department and of the money voted to the Department, but the Minister cannot be asked to provide a scheme during this particular discussion.
I would like to get some explanation from the Ministry as to the item of "Advances to workpeople for fares," and I would also ask for some information as to those people who made application and who were refused. Those people have a right of appeal, but in most cases they live twenty, thirty and forty miles away from the place where their appeal is heard. If their appeal is allowed by the Court of Referees, their fares are returned to them, but if the appeal is disallowed they are at the loss. I know cases of people who prosecuted these appeals and were turned down and they had to lie at the loss of these out-of-pocket expenses. Another point I would like to know is who appoints the umpires and also the referees in connection with these appeals?
I would like to draw the attention of the Minister in charge of this debate to the fact that contracts are being given away by railway companies to firms across the water which results in serious unemployment to the railwaymen of this country. I would like to inform the Dáil in regard to this matter that a contract amounting to £84,000 was recently given to an English firm by the Great Southern and Western Railway Company, whereas the work in this particular case could have been carried out and carried out better in the Inchicore works of the Company. The result of the giving away of this contract by this Company was that in the Inchicore Works the men had to be put on short weeks of three or four days each. I hope the Minister will inform the Great Southern and Western Company and all other Companies in Ireland that work of this kind should be kept at home, and that he will use his influence to bring pressure to bear upon the Companies concerned to see that contracts of this kind are kept in the country and that the revenues of the Irish railways, collected from the Irish trading and travelling community, will be expended in the country. If that is done, the number of unemployed in this country will be considerably reduced. I hope that the Minister will take action in this matter. I may say that the giving away of this contract valued at £84,000, and the giving away of other contracts of a similar kind, is a scandal, and I hope the Minister will take immediate action in regard to this particular question.
Before the Minister replies I would draw attention to many complaints received with regard to the administration of the Unemployment Fund more particularly the hardship that is thrown upon the men of congregating around different offices, and wasting hours and hours, sometimes in most unsalubrious surroundings and circumstances, without any regard to the morale of the men or their dignity or self-respect. It makes them feel as if they were going for pauper relief. That seems to be the feeling and that because they are unemployed they have no right to be treated with anything like consideration. I must not be taken as saying that paupers should be treated in any disrespectful way, but the impression you get with regard to these labourers is that they are treated as if they were without any rights and do not deserve very much consideration, and that the ordinary respect due to ordinary men is not due to men who are out of employment. That complaint is pretty general, and I intended to bring forward to the Minister proof of what I am now saying, and more detailed evidence. But I want to draw public attention to the complaint that men have with regard to the necessity for hanging about an employment office for long hours sometimes, waiting for the official to attend to them.
I would like to point out, before replying to the actual questions raised, that the amount down here under Administration is for the whole Department of Economics; Industry and Commerce include the Department of Economics which was in existence. The sum of £6,000 includes the taking over of the staff of the old Dáil. There is, of course, no mention in this of the Transport Department and the Marine Department. They will come up under separate Estimates. Deputy McBride's point about migratory labour has been made. I do not know if it would be possible to get specially reduced rates for migratory labourers any more than for any other labourers in the country. I think the whole thing is bound up with rates generally throughout the country. However, there is no harm in having a shot at it. I do not think it comes under this heading at all. As regards the shipping industry, I think the Speaker dealt with that as it should be dealt with. After all, it is not a time for asking what schemes we have on foot or prepared. I think it was Deputy Morrissey who mentioned the question of providing payments of travelling expenses to Appeal Courts. Of course that is a very big question. I think it was the experience in the early days that every individual who was turned down would come along with a claim which was no claim at all. They went and had a day's outing—perhaps to go into the next town, perhaps twenty or thirty miles away. The expenses under that head would be enormous if that safeguard were not there. I think the number of cases that are actually turned down are very few. I was asked about umpires and referees. Well, the Chairmen of the Court of Referees are appointed by me, and so also are the Deputy Chairmen and umpires are arranged in the same way. Deputy Davin mentioned £84,000 having been sent away to England on some contract or another. I do not know the details. Naturally the first thing I would take up with the Railway Company would be a matter like that and get the details.
It is the case of the G. S. and W. Railway Co.
If it is a thing that happened recently I am surprised I did not hear of it before now. As things are at present it is only possible to take it up with them and point out to them that Irish industry, of course, should be encouraged wherever possible, and where possible even a little more should be paid so as to keep the work in this country. I doubt, however, if we will be able to get firms like this, to pay more for Irish manufacture than they would have to pay for the same article abroad. The point raised by Deputy Johnson I heard as far back as last March. I heard it but not from a member of the Labour Party. He was a member at one time and made a similar complaint, and I asked him to give me some details. If we do not get details it is useless to make allegations. I do believe there is a good deal in it. There is this much in it: the very men he complains of as having treated the unemployed waiting around in that fashion are officials of the temporary type in most cases. They are organised men themselves, and they are Trades Unionists. It can be very easily brought home to them if we are given the details. I think that deals with the points raised by the various Deputies.
I feel that the protest I made at the beginning against the merging of these Departments has been justified by the speech made by the Minister who has just sat down. It was an excellent speech for a Minister of Labour, showing that he had a full grasp of all that concerns the ramifications of the Labour question, and the question of unemployment, the question with reference to wages and other questions such as that, but it was not a speech of a Minister of Trade and Commerce. There seems to be absolutely no cognisance of the fact that such a thing as trade and commerce is as vital to the country as labour. As a matter of fact I think that it would be conceded that the healthy condition of labour is contingent upon a healthy condition of Trade and Commerce.
I would like to remind the Deputy I did not make a speech. I simply replied to the questions raised.
Where Estimates are being put forward for any Department I maintain that it is right for the members of any Assembly who are voting those Estimates to have some information as to the development of the things under the control of that Department. Otherwise we will be simply voting without knowing——.
AN LEAS CHEANN COMHAIRLE
You are not dealing with any particular item before us.
I am dealing with the question of the cost of the Department of Commerce and the administration of it. I presume this is the Ministry of Industry and Commerce? I am not going to protract the discussion to any great length, but simply to recall the protest I made at the beginning of this session against the merging of these two Departments. I think it was a vital mistake, and I am still convinced of that, and I hope that the absence of any allusions to that vital thing known as commerce and trade in the discussions of these Estimates will bring home to the minds of the Deputies of this Dáil that what I said at the beginning of the Session was very much to the point and very necessary.
I join with Deputy Milroy in making a protest against the amalgamation of these Departments. It is quite evident from the presentation of the Estimates and the administration of that Department that very little attention has been paid, perhaps of necessity so, by the Minister in charge of the Department to the question of industry and commerce and to the industrial side of the question notwithstanding the fact that at the present time it is essentially vital for this country that the Minister in charge should devote his whole time and his whole attention to the development of the industry of this country and to the development of the commerce of this country. It is evident that from the way these Estimates have been presented that the Minister is unable to devote the time needed for that aspect of the national life. I join with Deputy Milroy in making that protest.
Motion made and question put: "That the Dáil in Committee, having considered the Estimates for Industry and Commerce in 1922-23, and having passed a vote on account of £156,000 for the period to the 6th December, 1922, recommend that the full Estimate of £228,756 for the Financial Year, 1922-23, be adopted in due course by the Oireachtas."
Agreed.