asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if he is aware that it is stated that a number of highly skilled workmen, female employees, and junior mechanics are to be dismissed from the Post Office factory, owing to the cessation of all manufacturing work in the factory; that this factory is at the present time making large quantities of switchboard apparatus, of a better material and of as good a workmanship and at as reasonable a cost as that purchased from abroad; whether he will state why the only factory in the Saorstát for such work is to be closed down, and if the whole of this work, which would give employment to quite a number of our people, is to be purchased from abroad.
CEISTEANNA—QUESTIONS. ORAL ANSWERS. - POST OFFICE FACTORY.
PADRAIG O DUBHTHAIGH
The staff employed in the factory is adjusted to the work in hand, and it is anticipated that some discharges may be necessary in consequence of reduced work. Manufacturing work was undertaken only experimentally and it is not proposed to discontinue any work which it has been found possible to undertake with satisfactory results, and with due regard to economy.
Has the Minister had regard to a statement he made in the House some time ago that when the work became satisfactory and proved profitable that then it would be handed over to persons of private enterprise? I would like to know if that is the state that has been arrived at already: that now that the work of this factory has proved satisfactory the Minister is prepared to hand it over to private enterprise.
No, it is not.
The Minister remembers the statement he made in that respect?