This explanation has thrown a little light on the intention of the Minister. I hope that Deputy O'Shaughnessy, for instance, will appreciate the statement of the Minister. The work of this Commission—all the inquiry, all the examination—is to be done by the staff. The tribunal— the three judges—are to sit and hear the evidence for and against presented, presumably, by the staff on the one hand and applicants on the other. Deputy Egan yesterday, and the Minister this morning, predicted that there would be a very large number of applications, and these applications may take different forms. There may be applications for the imposition of a duty, the modification of a duty, or the renewal of a duty. One firm, or one group of firms in the same business, might apply for an increase, and another group in the same business might apply for a modification in another direction or a retention, and other business may be applying at the same time. Presumably there is going to be a considerable variety of applications, if the prophecy of a large number is to come true. They will not be all in one direction. The test that is to be applied in all these cases is set out in the schedule. Somebody has to inquire into the likely effects on prices, the likely effects upon other industries. These, by the way, are not examinations into facts, but into expectations or probabilities.
If the work of inquiry in all these separate directions, into this multiplicity of industries, in respect to a large number of articles, is to be left to the staff, and then all to be brought together before the Commission, which is to be a part-time operation, and the three persons, each with a different point of view, balancing one against the other, are to come together for a final vetting, we know how long it is going to take to get through this multiplicity of inquiries. I would have thought that it was inevitable—almost a certainty—that much of the work of inquiry in respect to particular applications, particular items in this schedule, would have been relegated to one or more members of the Commission—two members, let us say, looking after the effects on other industries, two other members looking after the effects upon the particular industry, and some other —if there were a larger number—looking after the cost, efficiency and conditions of labour, and the cost, efficiency and conditions of the industry itself. All these various aspects cannot be left to the departmental staff to do all the preliminary work, leaving the members of the tribunal to carry on their own departmental work and to be brought together when the work has been done by the staff, merely to draw up a report.
That, apparently, is the prospect before the Deputies and before the people interested in those applications. I think that there is quite a good case to be made in favour of adding, let us say, a representative of consumers as such, a representative of manufacturers as such, or a representative of labour as such, to the Commission. Supposing only one outsider, one non-civil servant is appointed, if you want to bring into the Commission some detached view or specialised view, I think it is desirable that there should be at least the power to increase the number. But, of course, the Minister's vision of the way this Commission is going to work naturally alters the position. If it is only to be a body coming together to gather into a focus all the work that has been done by the staff—the inquiry into the operations of the particular firm or group of firms, the capital invested, the number of persons employed, the total annual value of goods produced, and under schedule 2, the cost, efficiency and conditions of labour in Saorstát Eireann compared with such cost, efficiency and conditions in other countries—unless the Minister is going to rely entirely upon the figures submitted by the International Labour Office, that might well require careful examination, apart from what the Commissioners themselves would carry on. I think that some member of the Commission might well be relegated to supervise that particular inquiry. If the real work of the Commission is to be done by the staff, then I am reinforced in my view that there is no necessity for this Commission at all—that is to say—that the Departments as they are now constituted, can do the work very efficiently. I wonder, therefore, whether Deputies are still satisfied, after the Minister's explanation, that this Commission is going to do any good work.
