I move the Second Reading of this Bill, the title of which is "An Act to extend the limit of time imposed by the Trade Loans (Guarantee) Act, 1924, on the giving of guarantees and the making of loans under that Act." The Bill speaks for itself. It is simply giving a further year to the Trades Loan (Guarantee) Amendment Bill, 1925, and certain consequential amendments with regard to the period continuing the three-monthly period in which statements have to be laid before the House, and a consequential amendment with regard to the title.
DAIL IN COMMITTEE. - TRADE LOANS (GUARANTEE) (AMENDMENT) BILL, 1925—SECOND STAGE.
Is there any information to be given to the House in addition to that given, I think by the financial resolution, in regard to the utilisation that is to be made of the Trade Loans (Guarantee) Act up to date? There was certain information given regarding the amount of money called for and the amount guaranteed up to two or three weeks ago. I would like to know what is the position today? Has it changed to any degree since that time?
As far as I remember, I made a rough calculation for the Deputy who asked a question some time ago as to the applications recommended for guarantee by the Advisory Committee. The total money involved in the applications recommended came to about £300,000. But the position has changed as regards the money value since. I am taking it still on the same basis of applications recommended by the Advisory Committee, because the position changes from day to day as between applications passed by my Department or the Department of Finance, and applications where the guarantee has in fact been given, and where the money has, in fact, been given by the Bank. The position, as to applications recommended for guarantee under Part 1 is that they amount to £484,000, and under Part 2 the sum is, as I think it was on the day the Deputy asked, £5,500. The total money involved is £489,600. Of course there will be the usual quarterly statement made as soon as possible, following the 31st July, which will bring these figures up to date then, but that is the position actually at the moment. The money involved is about £490,000.
I think before we renew this Act we might have a little more information as to its working and as to the applications received. For instance, we were told that in this Act the Government were giving effect to its pledge to put down profiteering. To what extent has that been effective?
When was that said?
I am speaking from memory. The Minister did not say it, but the President did. When asked as to when the pledge would be performed he said, "We are bringing in a Bill to promote industry and to put down profiteering."
I think the Deputy's recollections are very much exaggerated.
We were told, on the discussion on Section 2, that loans would be granted to associations of consumers and producers, and that it was intended for this purpose, so that they might market their goods more effectively and cheaply. I should like to know how that section, as regards loans to associations of consumers and producers, has worked.
How many associations of consumers or producers, as distinct from ordinary commercial firms, have applied for guarantees and how many have received guarantees? There is another point that I want to make as regards the working of the Act. It was, I think, felt by everybody, when the principal Act was under discussion, that in its working this Act should be divorced altogether from politics. The Minister placed himself in the hands of an Advisory Committee—an admirable Advisory Committee. I think he got the best Advisory Committee he possibly could get. But then we have Ministers going to their constituents and practically promising them money from public funds. A couple of nights ago the Minister for External Affairs escaped from the arduous labours of his Department and went down to Clondalkin, where he told his constituents that the Government were going to put up one quarter the cost of setting the factory going again. The report of the Minister's speech was, no doubt, very much condensed in the newspapers and he may have qualified his statement in some way. But the speech read as if that money was being given under the Trade Loans (Guarantee) Act. Is that the case or is a special grant being given by the Government towards relief of distress? If that is so, it would be a proper thing to do, but it is undesirable, I think, that Ministers should go to individual sections of their constituents and say: "We will provide this money for you"——
Perhaps, in the absence of the Minister for External Affairs, I might interrupt the Deputy to say that I happen to know the Minister was incorrectly reported in connection with that matter.
Then I shall say no more about it. I am very glad to have brought out that contradiction.
Do not carry the contradiction too far.
The Minister, I am told was incorrectly reported. I am glad to know that the report is incorrect, and that, as I rather surmised, the Minister qualified his remarks in some way that made his statement less objectionable than it appeared to be on the surface.
Will the Minister give us the facts, not as reported but as they were stated. What are the proposals regarding the financing of the Clondalkin Paper Mills? Is there anything positive before the Ministry, which can be disclosed to the public? Is there any policy which can be stated and of which the reports will be accurate? Now that the matter has been opened, the residents of Clondalkin and the Deputies representing that division will be interested to find out what is the truth.
With regard to the President's pledge, to which Deputy Cooper referred, I have the Official Report here. I thought this matter would be referred to. Deputy Cooper, on the Second Stage of the Bill, on the 25th June, said:—
It is more than an ordinary Government Bill, brought in in the ordinary course of Government business. It is a Bill to fulfil a pledge, and a very long-delayed pledge, made by the President.
The Deputy then goes on to give certain details with regard to the time and place where this pledge was, as alleged, given. He proceeds:—
Last week the President informed us that this was a Bill that was intended to fulfil this pledge. Does the President dispute the reference?
The PRESIDENT: Oh, no! I said the answer was very safe.
That is all that is said there about the pledge or the fulfilment of it. I do not think that either at a public meeting, or in the House here, the President made the statement that this was the Government's Anti-Profiteering Bill. I certainly was never guilty of any such suggestion.
Then the pledge is still unfulfilled.
No. I shall have to read further from the Official Report. On that occasion the Deputy pressed the matter further. He asked had the pledge been fulfilled, or whether they were to take it that the pledge, then, was still unfulfilled. He said that they appeared to have got no distance at all; that the Government had not been able to achieve the object which the President, the head of the State, then put forward as an argument in an election. The Report then proceeds:—
The PRESIDENT: No.
Major COOPER: And on which he secured the return of his candidate.
The PRESIDENT: It was given as an answer to a question.
Deputy Johnson then intervened and Deputy Cooper summed up with the remark: "We will leave it there." There was nothing very conclusive or decisive about the pledge—whether it was in fact given, whether there was any fulfilment of it or whether it continued.
We left it there and it is still there.
It may be still there, so far as the putting down of profiteering by this Bill is concerned. If we are to go into that question, it will occupy much more time than I intended this Bill should occupy. I should have to require—as I think I shall have to require in future, when anybody stands up to talk about profiteering—a definition of "profiteering." What is profiteering? Is the word used in the sense in which the word was made popular by "The New Statesman," or by "The New Age" in the days before the war—goods produced for profit? Or does it mean some type of extravagant or extraordinary profit? Who is to draw the line between what, I am sure, Deputy Cooper would call, on the one hand, "ordinary profit" and what, on the other hand, he would describe as "extraordinary profit"? When you say that there is no anti-profiteering Bill, I can argue that there cannot be any anti-profiteering Bill until we all go over under Deputy Johnson's leadership. I do not know that Deputy Cooper would regard that as an end to be desired.
Sometimes I would.
The question of the Advisory Committees has been raised, and from the way Deputy Cooper introduced his remarks, he went further, I think, than he intended. He said I had set up very good Advisory Committees under this Act, and he asked whether Ministers or Deputies interfered with those Advisory Committees by going to their constituents and promising certain things. The report of a speech made by the Minister for External Affairs, has been mentioned. What did the Minister for External Affairs actually say? As I was not present, I cannot say, but I know what he went there prepared to say. He went prepared to make the very ordinary and simple statement that the Clondalkin Paper Mills had made application for a guarantee, and that that guarantee had, in fact, been passed by the Advisory Committee. Those are the simple facts. There is nothing to be added to them. I do not see that it is going out of the way for either a Minister or a Deputy to address his constituents and to give them certain information which any Deputy here could have got by way of question.
There have been, under Section 2 of the Act, 30 applications, of which three only have been recommended. These three are co-operative societies. I do not know whether that is what the Deputy means by speaking of associations which are "not of the ordinary commercial type of association." Three co-operative societies have had their applications for loans recommended. Ten applications have been rejected. A certain number of others have been examined by the Committee, but no decision has yet been come to.
Would the Minister give us further details? Will the loans tend to make the goods of these co-operative societies cheaper?
The applicant companies who have received recommendations from the Committee are: the Waterford Co-operative Society, the Kildare Co-operative Society, and the Collooney Co-operative Agricultural and Dairy Society. These are the only three. There have been only 30 applications under Section 2 of the Act. Under Section 1, there have been about 265 applications. All told, there have been about 300 applications. Of these, there have been recommended by the Advisory Committee, to date, about 21. There have been definitely and finally rejected about 31. About 52 have been examined by the Committee, which has not yet come to a decision upon them. That does not exhaust the list. The mere addition of these last three sets of figures will not amount to 300. The explanation is quite simple.
A very big number of claims came before the Committee, which were found on a first glance, to be outside the terms of the Act and to be simply a matter for rejection. There was, apparently, a certain amount of misunderstanding as to the purpose of this Act. One of the first letters received in my Department was from a gentleman who said that he had observed from the newspapers that loans were about to be granted by the Government, and that he wanted one. Another gentleman framed his application in an alternative way. He said he would not mind whether it was a loan or a Government job he got. But he wanted either. There have been quite a number of applications which were outside the scope of the Act. Of the Advisory Committee, what Deputy Cooper has said casually, should be supplemented by me. I got five men who were sufficiently unselfish to give a considerable amount of their time, and to take themselves away from their own business, to give care and attention to the applications received under this Act. The three who formed the Committee for the purposes of Part 1 of the Act, have been much more called upon than the full Committee for the purposes of Part 2. From these three, if I might single them out, for that reason, we have got the most constant attendance and the most careful consideration for all the applications that came up. The amount of service that has been rendered by these three gentlemen, in an honorary way, to the State, has been more than any tribute I could pay them here, would do justice to. I have been fortunate in securing that two, at least, of them will remain on if the Act is to be extended for a further period. The third I omit, because I have not yet been in a position to approach him, and see if he will continue to act. I have great hopes that he will also continue to serve. Deputy Bryan Cooper raised one question, and I had rather hoped I might get him to speak again on the point when I had emphasised, in reading, the longer title of the Bill—"An Act to extend the limit of time imposed." I fear, however, that the amendment that he projected will hardly find a place in this Bill.
On reading the Bill, I am inclined to think so, too.
I was going to suggest that that was not a matter for me to rule on. It was a matter for the Ceann Comhairle to rule later, if the Deputy proceeded with his amendment. I have given certain figures as to the amount of money guaranteed. These things will be more clearly set out in the quarterly statement to be issued after the 31st July. These statements have not contained very much information so far. The position was clear to Deputies. They will remember that there was a certain hindrance to the free operation of this Act in its early stages, and, consequently, it was not possible to have applications dealt with, and to have recommendations put through with the speed that was desirable. However, that difficulty has been got over, and the final statement will show the position for the yearly period of this first Act. From that on, I hope the quarterly statement will give much more information than the quarterly statement issued heretofore gave.
Question—"That the Bill be read a second time"—put, and agreed to.
Committee Stage to be taken on Friday, 12th June.