The reduction, of £1,200 in the Estimate as compared with last year, is mainly accounted for under sub-head (a, a)—Film Censorship—in which there is a reduction of £1,032. I will refer to that in detail. Taking sub-head (a)—Salaries, Wages and Allowances—the sum of £670 is provided for the administration of the Aliens' Restriction Act. That is made up as follows:—There is an immigration officer at Cobh, who gets an inclusive salary of £370. There is a provision of £300 for payment of a deputy, for extra assistance during the summer months and for incidentals. Deputies might wish to have a resumé of the duties and responsibilities of immigration officers.
All aliens coming from abroad (i.e., from outside the Saorstát or Great Britain or Northern Ireland) and wishing to land in Saorstát Eireann must receive permission to do so from an immigration officer. On the immigration officer rests the full responsibility for seeing that no undesirable alien is permitted to land, and to that effect each alien landing has to be carefully examined. The routine for the landing and examination of aliens is as follows:—The immigration officer boards the arriving vessel before anyone has left it and is supplied with the passenger manifest. All passengers desiring to land, Irish, British and aliens, are then examined by him. He has nothing to do as regards passengers listed as Irish and British except to see that their nationality is genuine and that they are not aliens in possession of forged passports. Aliens must be in possession of passports, duly viséd when necessary. The immigration officer is empowered to refuse leave to land to any alien who is not in a position to support himself and his dependents; if coming to take up employment has not a permit from the Ministry of Industry and Commerce; is a lunatic, idiot or mentally deficient; has been certified for medical reasons to be unfit to land; has been sentenced in a foreign country for any crime within the meaning of the Extradition Acts, 1870-1906; is the subject of a Deportation or an Expulsion Order in force; has been prohibited from landing by the Minister for Justice. On the immigration officer rests the responsibility of deciding in doubtful cases whether a person is of Irish or British nationality or is an alien. Exhaustive instructions have been issued on this point for the guidance of immigration officers.
All aliens on the ship must complete landing cards, which must be checked by the immigration officer and, if leave to land is granted, endorsed as to the conditions of landing and forwarded to the Aliens' Branch of the Department of Justice. If an alien is refused to land a special form must be completed by the immigration officer and copies served on the alien, the master of the ship, Aliens' Branch, and a copy retained at the port. In all cases the immigration officer must endorse his decision on the passport (or other nationality papers) of the alien.
An alien who is refused leave to land must be returned on the ship on which he came. If this is inconvenient he may, with the leave of an immigration officer, be placed on shore and detained temporarily until it becomes possible to send him back. Whilst so detained he is deemed to be in legal custody.
An immigration officer must compile and keep statistics of the alien traffic at his port, which he forwards monthly in the form of a return to the Aliens' Branch of the Department of Justice. He must also furnish detailed reports on special cases. It is usual for him to keep in touch with the general progress of public affairs, trade and commerce at his port and to report to the Ministry thereon.
During the year ended the 31st March, 1925, 6,302 alien passengers arrived at the Port of Cobh, and 5,976 departed therefrom, while for the same period the respective figures for the Port of Moville were 1,554 and 1,314. During last year only three aliens were refused leave to land. Of these, two were seamen, but, of course, many of the passengers arriving were only allowed to land on time conditions. That is, they had business to transact in the country and were allowed to land and remain in the country for a limited period. There was an increase in the number of American visitors.
An allowance of £50 is provided for an inspector under the Cruelty to Animals Act, 1876. The principal duty of the vivisection inspector is the examination of applications for licences and certificates under the Cruelty to Animals Act, 1876. It is only when the inspector recommends that the applicant is a fit and proper person to experiment on living animals, and that the experiments are necessary in the interests of science, that licences are issued. The inspector also limits the number of animals to be experimented on, and may specify the kind of animal. It is also the duty of the inspector to see that no unnecessary cruelty is inflicted on the animals used for the experiments.
The amounts provided for the Accounts Branch may seem large, but it must be remembered that this staff deals not alone with the accounting side of this particular Vote but also of the Gárda Síochána and District Court Votes. The centralised system of payment adapted for the Gárda Síochána has proved entirely satisfactory. All payments arising out of the activities of the force are made by the Accounts Staff provided for under this Vote and the local officers of the Force, already fully occupied with their police duties, are thus relieved of a considerable amount of detailed clerical and financial work, for which they could ill afford the attention required.
As to sub-head (a, a)—"Film Censorship"—the financial arrangements in connection with the censorship of films are now on a completely new basis. Last year a contract was entered into with the Irish Bonded Film Store, Ltd., for the exhibition of films for censorship purposes at a rate of ten shillings per thousand feet. That contract expired in February last, and at that time we took the decision that the department itself should undertake the work of showing the films. Premises were accordingly taken in Molesworth Street, and the necessary machinery has been installed. The estimate shows that we hope to carry out the work at a considerable saving as compared with last year's cost. Owing to the increased volume of work and responsibilities attaching to the office, the censor's salary has now been fixed at £600 per annum. The wages paid to the operators are at the trade union rates for this trade. The figure of £932 —cost of showing films—is made up as follows:—£260 for electric power, which might be reduced considerably in the near future under the operations of the Shannon scheme; depreciation, renewals, etc., £100; rent and insurance, £250; light and heat, £50; cleaning, £100; telephones, telegrams, stationery, and all incidentals, £163.
The Censorship of Films Act, under which we are operating, provides that these fees shall be fixed in such a manner as to meet the expenses of the censorship and no more. It has, therefore, been arranged to pass on the saving effected under the new arrangement to the trade, and an order was made on 5th February last reducing the charge for "interest" films from one-tenth of a penny to three-fiftieth of a penny per foot, and reducing the charge for other films from one-fifth of a penny to three-twenty-fifth of a penny per foot. Deputies will, of course, understand that this branch of the department is not strictly a charge on public funds, that it pays for itself on the fees, and the fees are fixed as nearly as possible simply to bear the expense of the censorship operation, and no more than that.
