Deputy Lemass urges the criticism against my Department that it has been very ineffective in the matter of bringing in legislation this year. It is a strange complaint. Previously we used to hear about the rush of legislation there was. Now apparently the Deputy's mind runs to a confusion as between running round with legislation, whether legislation is of use or not, and doing nothing. He has failed even then to tell us what part of the industrial activities of the country can be benefited by legislation, which has not been brought in. That is surely part of the following out of the statement the Deputy made, that only three small Bills were introduced by the Minister this year, and that therefore he is doing nothing.
APPROPRIATION BILL—SECOND STAGE.
Debate resumed on question: "That the Appropriation Bill be read a second time."
No. I wish to correct the Minister. I said these Bills were the only signs we could find of the activities of the Department in the Dáil. We could find no signs outside the Dáil.
If these are signs in the Dáil and the Deputy could never find any outside notwithstanding what I said on the Estimate, I think there is apparently very little ground in the Deputy's argument. The Deputy has not made it clear that there is any phase of industrial life in the country which could be bettered by legislation brought into this House. The Deputy should not hurriedly rush to a conclusion that because legislation has not been brought forward here that nothing has been done, at any rate with regard to legislation. Reference could be made to the Weights and Measures Act, the Gas Regulation Bill or the Trades Loans Guarantee Act. The useful activity of the Department should not be measured by a plethora of legislation brought in on the initiative of the Department or the absence of that legislation.
Some other Deputy said—I think it was Deputy Moore again in that simple speech of his, that there was no explanation given of the work of the Department. I went into such details at first of the activities of the Department that Deputy Derrig criticised me afterwards for having an establishment on an imperial scale, too big for this country and suitable only for a highly industrialised community like England. He said it was out of place here. The Deputy forgets that what we are discussing is an Appropriation Bill which covers the Estimates and the discussion on the Estimates.
Why did the Minister refuse to state whether he would publish an annual report?
Why did I refuse? I did not refuse.
Yes.
Will the Deputy quote?
There is no evidence of any statutory obligation to publish a report.
Is not that an answer to the Deputy?
No.
The Deputy characterised that as an impertinence yesterday. It was very pertinent to the query.
It was not pertinent to the question.
It was very pertinent to the question. I hope the Deputy has suffcient intelligence and resilience to ask a supplementary question.
Unfortunately, reading from the Government benches is so very bad that only one out of six answers reaches this part of the House.
Then there are others besides the Ceann Comhairle who want their hearing attended to. Could not the Deputy have asked the answer to be repeated? Is that what the Deputy thinks is his duty to his constituency when he puts down a question? It may be a matter on which he could have raised a supplementary question, but he leaves the thing alone so as to have a complaint afterwards.
Not at all.
I stated quite a lot with regard to the activity of the Department and went into an analysis of the sums of money voted for it, and pointed out that there were huge sums paid to the Department of Industry and Commerce. As a matter of fact, if the unemployment insurance branch was taken away, if there were any complaints to be made against the Department, it is that not enough money was voted on the industrial side. One does not vote money hurriedly to pile up staffs of officials until one can see the useful intervention the Government may make in the way of industrial development in the country. I am tackled on three points by Deputy Lemass. He raised the question of slates, and said that he knows one quarry where the slates were produced, and where the owner could get them exported for big housing schemes in Glasgow, but that they could not be used here by the Dublin Commissioners. He referred to the Trades Loan Act, which he criticised me for bringing forward, and said that that was brought forward to help cases of that kind.
I did not criticise the Minister for bringing forward that Act, but I said that I did not know why it was not utilised more frequently, as only one loan was guaranteed last year.
Because the public did not make use of it we are to be criticised.
I do not know that the public are at fault. The machine has got rusty.
I would like the Deputy to examine the files in my Department with regard to the Trade Loan Guarantee Act and see the number of cases pending at the time which would have lapsed if that Act had not been effective for another year. The fact that most of them may not have got loans——
None of them.
The fact that none of them came to completion in the meantime would have been no excuse for my not bringing forward the Act to give such cases a further chance. As a matter of fact the Trade Loan Guarantee Act not merely started this quarry to which Deputy Lemass referred, but allowed the owner afterwards to open a second quarry which was also helped by that Act. As to the Dublin Commissioners, I do not know why they do not use slates from this quarry. It is not because they have not information or that they are not disposed to use Irish slates. One of the best investigations in regard to quarries, particularly for slate purposes, was made under the auspices of the late Town Clerk of Dublin, and a very well-drawn-up report was presented as a result of the investigations conducted in the old days.
Deputy Lemass refers to slates, cement, and building materials of all types. As a matter of fact, the Dublin Commissioners send to my Department every year a list of their requirements with a view to ascertaining whether we could put them in touch with manufacturers in this country who manufacture any of the things which they have on their list. From time to time, under the guidance of my officials, they change their specifications and lists in order to give more scope to Irish manufacturers to tender for articles which the Commissioners require. The lists come round annually and correspondence is entered into and over and over again the Commissioners make changes in the original list in order to cater for what Irish manufacturers produce. I do not know why exactly the Dublin Commissioners do not avail of Irish-made slates. I do not know on what their decision turns. It is probably a matter of quality and the particular type of slate they want. In the report referred to a defect was alleged in regard to a particular type of slate produced from a particular quarry. That particular slate may be used and may be more suitable for houses in Glasgow than here. From my knowledge of the Dublin Commissioners I know that on every possible occasion they make use of my Department and make every endeavour to get their requirements from Irish manufacturers.
Cement was alluded to. From the first day on which I entered the office of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce I do not know any proposition that more often came before the Department than that of cement.
It was first brought prominently and vehemently under my notice by Deputy Corish in regard to the Drinagh Cement Works. There have been four groups of foreigners brought across here almost entirely at the initiative of my Department, to see if anything in the nature of a cement manufacture could be started here. There are people who have options on sites where there seems to be raw material in abundance. Yet the thing cannot be got moving. I would like Deputy Lemass, on his tour of investigation in my Department, to give two days to the investigation of all that has been done in regard to cement. I believe that there is an application for a tariff on cement before the Commission. I know that a case is being prepared. In regard to slates, cement and building materials, I find that there is a disposition to speak in a different fashion in this House alleging a different type of impediment to the use of Irish manufacture from the case made by people who apply for a tariff to the Commission. Deputy Lemass said that by taking action in these matters the Department might help in some way in bringing down the cost of building in Dublin. His allegation in regard to cement was that it was sold here at ring prices. In any application ever made in regard to tariffs the contention is quite the reverse, namely, that it is dumping that is going on in the matter of cement, and that if there is to be any result from a tariff it will inevitably mean an increase in the price of building, by whatever small fraction of the building costs is represented by cement.
An bhfuil cead agam ceist do chur? Is it not true that one of the foreign firms that came here to make cement is waiting to start, waiting to see whether a tariff will be put on?
I do not know that any firm is waiting to start, but I know that one firm is preparing an application to the Commission, and that options have been taken on sites by that firm. I am referring particularly to Deputy Lemass's argument. I never heard it advanced in regard to cement that this country is suffering from high prices imposed by a monopoly, by a ring. It is, in fact, quite the reverse. We are told that cement was being dumped. Vague use is made of the word "dumping," as there is an absence of definition in regard to it. If you take it in its most extreme form as meaning that the price in this country is under the cost of production in the country of manufacture, it applied at one time more to cement than to any other article.
Would the Minister explain why foreign firms sell under production cost in a country where there is no cement manufactured?
That is due to competition. There are Belgian, French and English cements all in competition. It is alleged that these people are off-loading surplus stuff which they cannot get rid of on account of competition among these three countries. At the time of the depreciated currency there was a case to be made that there was dumping, in the most precise meaning of that word, partly from France and, to a slight degree, from Belgium. As to building materials in general, the Deputy ceases to be precise. One item that may come into consideration is the question of bricks. There used to be a certain number of brick yards in the country but some of them are closed down and some of the remaining ones are in a bad way. Again there were people who came across to this country to investigate the possibility of establishing here one good brick works of a particular type. The people concerned who came here pursued the matter no further when they discovered that the smallest economic unit at which they could produce bricks—I mean the ordinary type of brick and not the fancy or glazed brick—was a unit producing about, I think, 14,000,000 bricks in the year. The number of bricks used in the country hardly amounts to that. Again we would be faced with the difficulty that if a really good firm from another country came in here and set up in a good situation, picking a good site where they would have water and other transport facilities, it would inevitably wipe out every other brick yard existing in the country. One will be faced eventually with the problem of consolidating the small units in the country into a larger unit, and of getting the thing done, it is hoped, under the auspices of Irish industrialists instead of letting foreigners come in here to wipe out our Irish industrialists. Irish industrialists ought to be wide awake enough to their own interests to make an inquiry, go into details and find out, as regards all the small brick yards that are dotted all over the country, if there is any chance whereby these could be consolidated into a single unit. If Irish bricks are to be used, if there is to be the obligation of people building houses to use Irish bricks, which will cost more than bricks you can get from outside, then instead of there being a reduction in the cost of housing, I fear very distinctly that there will be an increase in the cost. As a matter of fact, it is doubtful if brick-built houses are going to be common at all in the future. It is a question whether that type of house has not gone for all time, except, of course, in the case of a person who wants to build a luxury or a fancy house or in the case of one who has a taste for a structure of that type.
The cost is the matter that really comes in. If there is to be a tariff put on stone, or any form of protection which results in putting on people the necessity of using Irish-made stone or Irish-manufactured cement, or Irish-made bricks or building materials of various types, then it seems to me that is a thing that will have to be examined in the greatest detail. On the allegations made, the natural inference to be drawn is that there would be some slight increase in the cost of building. I suppose in the order of things, what one would most abhor is any increase in the necessities of life, and an increase in the cost of building materials.
The position with regard to the building of houses is sufficiently lagging at the moment without making the situation more difficult by increasing the cost of building materials. Deputy Lemass—I hope this is a misunderstanding of what he said—used the phrase that I had made a tilt at Irish industrial inefficiency. I never said that. I alleged that there was inefficiency in a particular case. I take it that the Deputy was referring to the debate on the Tariff Commission where I did refer distinctly to one report— the report on margarine. I referred distinctly to what the Tariff Commissioners had said with regard to that, and I spoke of certain in-and-out conduct on the part of certain people who made the application with regard to margarine, and I said that was hiding inefficiency. That phrase ought not to be extended. The Deputy can read what I said, and if there are any words of mine which would seem to indicate general inefficiency in regard to Irish industrialists, then I take this the first occasion that I have of withdrawing that, but I repeat again that I never made that statement.
I did allege it with regard to a particular thing, and said with regard to the conduct of that person on the prima facie case made, that that person was trying to get inefficiency protected until that applicant firm makes a better case for the particular conduct that characterised the application.
Deputies Lemass, Carney and Moore spoke of industry and transport. I was waiting, even on an Appropriation Bill where one does not go into details and into small points, to get a general line of policy from these Deputies, where I would hear schemes put forward and one big point picked out for discussion and emphasis laid on that. I waited to hear what would be said. Deputy Moore talked about transport and wondered what the view of the Department was, but he gave no indication of what his own views were. Deputy Lemass wound up by saying that if proper methods were adopted he had no doubt but that all the unemployed could be employed and that emigration could be stopped. One could not go borrowing on a prospectus which merely referred to "proper methods" for industry. One has to be more precise than that and get down to details of the scheme if there is to be any proper approach to the problem. Then we had a statement from Deputy Carney. He said that if the moneys spent on the Army and on the Civic Guard were spent on some other purpose—"look at the use that could be made of it." I waited to hear the use. He said it could be used to stablise industry. How?
Again there was silence. He said he was only quoting from Deputy Flinn. I read what Deputy Flinn had said, and so far as I could see there was very little in the way of precise statement.
The Minister has just stated that an Appropriation Bill is not the place to give a precise statement or details of a scheme.
I said that it was not the place to ask for details such as are usually given on the Estimates when Deputies ask questions as why so-and-so did not get an old age pension or why a particular drainage scheme was not carried out. But I do say that a debate on the Appropriation Bill is the place for general suggestions in regard to things that are relevant to an Appropriation Bill. If there was relevancy in talking of scrapping the Army and Civic Guards and saving money, surely the purpose for which money so saved could be applied is equally relevant, but that was not done. The Deputy simply went on to say "stabilise industry." Deputy Lemass spoke about proper measures being taken. As a kind of preamble to his whole speech he said the country's poverty was due to the fact that the country had accepted a lower national status than what it ought to have achieved. Again I do not know that that is a proper matter for an Appropriation Bill. The general statement was that what is wrong with this country and what is keeping it in poverty is the fact that it accepted a lower national status than what should have been given to it.
Deputy de Valera prefaced his remarks by the statement that as the main details had been gone into on the Estimates he would not go into them again but that he would recapitulate them. Ministers have sat here during the Estimates each answering for his own Department. If Deputies proceed to recapitulate points previously discussed is there any necessity for lengthy replies to those particular things? Deputy de Valera proceeded after that to have one of those rambles through the country he sometimes indulges in. I did not hear the whole of his speech, but I have read since something about it. What are the things the Deputy wanted done? A reduction in the number of members of this House. That means legislation, and is not a matter to be discussed on this Bill. The Governor-General's salary. That has been voted, and the arguments for and against it have been made. A reduction in the number of members of the Seanad. For that again legislation is required.
The Deputy then went on to talk about his desire to get the truth through the country. There is one answer to that particular type of claim made in the leading speech on the Appropriation Bill, particularly when the question of truth is mixed up with the unsavoury matter he referred to here yesterday. I do not know what the sublety was in introducing that unsavoury matter. The Deputy referred to a statement with regard to certain things he alleged have been said against him. It was news to me. I queried a lot of people since and they never before heard that such statements were made. I do not know what reason the Deputy had for giving publicity here for the first time to rumours which he alleged were circulated about him in America.
If you take the trouble to read my speech you will see the reason from the context.
I cannot imagine any context——
No, of course.
I cannot imagine any context which would justify the unsavoury and ludicrous statement the Deputy alleged to have been made about himself in America.
Not in America only.
Here then.
Yes.
It comes as a surprise to everybody except to members of the Deputy's own Party.
Does the Minister recall the remark by the ex-Governor-General in the Shelbourne Hotel? Was that unsavoury or not?
I am dealing now with one particular matter. The Deputy wants to widen the scope of the discussion. It is a matter that should never have been introduced into this House at all.
If it should never have been introduced, why does the Minister introduce it?
I am querying the particular subtlety there was in introducing it.
Does the Minister think it fair for the Minister for Agriculture to introduce rumours about Deputy Aiken?
That is a totally different matter. I do not know if Deputy de Valera is sorry for the promulgation of the alleged rumours about himself.
If the Minister reads the speech he will find the whole thing is mentioned.
Surely there is a distinction between the peculiar type of story which Deputy de Valera alleged was circulated against himself and what the Minister for Agriculture read out from a newspaper as having been said by Deputy Aiken.
The Minister did not read the speech.
He did.
If he did he could see why I introduced it. The Minister for Agriculture suggested that Deputy Aiken in the United States was saying things, in other words, was telling cock-and-bull stories to the American people and deliberately deceiving them, and that brought in the question of truth. If Deputy Aiken ever said anything like what he was reported to have said, I gave the probable reasons why he mentioned these matters about rumours at election times.
I fail to see the connection.
No, because the Minister did not read the speech. He was out to wallow, like the priompallán.
There has been wallowing, and plenty of it, by the Deputy. The excuse was made for Deputy Aiken by Deputy Little that he never made the statement reported.
May I contradict the Minister? I said that these reports are absolutely unreliable. I gave an example of another case to show how unreliable they are, and how unfair it is to quote such reports.
The first suggestion was that the Minister for Agriculture was not quoting from any paper, but was going on his own imagination. Counsel always have two defences. The first in this case was that counsel had not the report before him, and the second was that if the matter quoted was in the paper it was incorrectly reported. We will see about that later.
And the third is that the Minister for Agriculture had no right, without having complete evidence, to introduce that matter at all.
Surely a man is entitled to say "Here is a newspaper report of the meeting," and leave it there.
Yes, if he quotes the newspaper.
We are coming to the point that it is not believed it is in the newspaper. I will leave it as it is.
One of the allegations by Deputy Mullins was that the Ministers, by refusing to take part in debates, were rapidly earning for this House the reputation of being a talking-shop. That is a curious definition, that because Ministers will not intervene in debates the House is turned into a talking-shop. I hope I am going to be famous for having drawn from Deputy Smith the only coherent remark he has made on any subject.
The Minister for Justice can remind him of another occasion.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 80; Níl, 53.
Tá
- Aird, William P.
- Alton, Ernest Henry.
- Anthony, Richard.
- Beckett, James Walter.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Blythe, Ernest.
- Bourke, Séamus A.
- Brennan, Michael.
- Broderick, Henry.
- Brodrick, Seán.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Byrne, John Joseph.
- Carey, Edmund.
- Coburn, James.
- Collins-O'Driscoll, Mrs. Margt.
- Colohan, Hugh.
- Conlon, Martin.
- Connolly, Michael P.
- Cooper, Byran Ricco.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Crowley, James.
- Daly, John.
- Davin, William.
- Davis, Michael.
- De Loughrey, Peter.
- Doherty, Eugene.
- Dolan, James N.
- Doyle, Edward.
- Doyle, Peadar Seán.
- Duggan, Edmund John.
- Dwyer, James.
- Egan, Barry M.
- Esmonde, Osmond Thos. Grattan.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Good, John.
- Haslett, Alexander.
- Hassett, John J.
- Heffernan, Michael R.
- Hennessy, Michael Joseph.
- Hennessy, Thomas.
- Hennigan, John.
- Henry, Mark.
- Hogan, Patrick (Galway).
- Holohan, Richard.
- Jordan, Michael.
- Law, Hugh Alexander.
- Leonard, Patrick.
- Lynch, Finian.
- Mathews, Arthur Patrick.
- McDonogh, Martin.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- Mongan, Joseph W.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, James E.
- Murphy, Joseph Xavier.
- Murphy, Timothy Joseph.
- Myles, James Sproule.
- Nally, Martin Michael.
- Nolan, John Thomas.
- O'Connell, Richard.
- O'Connell, Thomas J.
- O'Connor, Bartholomew.
- O'Donovan, Timothy Joseph.
- O'Hanlon, John F.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Mahony, Dermot Gun.
- O'Reilly, John J.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Reynolds, Patrick.
- Roddy, Martin.
- Shaw, Patrick W.
- Sheehy, Timothy (West Cork).
- Thrift, William Edward.
- Tierney, Michael.
- Vaughan, Daniel.
- White, Vincent Joseph.
- Wolfe, Jasper Travers.
Níl
- Allen, Denis.
- Blaney, Neal.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Brady, Seán.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Buckley, Daniel.
- Carney, Frank.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Fahy, Frank.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- French, Seán.
- Gorry, Patrick J.
- Goulding, John.
- Hayes, Seán.
- Holt, Samuel.
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Jordan, Stephen.
- Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
- Kent, William R.
- Kerlin, Frank.
- Killane, James Joseph.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kilroy, Michael.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- Carty, Frank.
- Clery, Michael.
- Colbert James.
- Cooney, Eamon.
- Corkery, Dan.
- Corry, Martin John.
- Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
- Crowley, Tadhg.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- Maguire, Ben.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Mullins, Thomas.
- O'Dowd, Patrick Joseph.
- O'Kelly, Seán T.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Powell, Thomas P.
- Ruttledge, Patrick J.
- Ryan, James.
- Sexton, Martin.
- Sheehy, Timothy (Tipperary).
- Smith, Patrick.
- Tubridy, John.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Francis C.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Duggan and P.S. Doyle; Níl: Deputies G. Boland and Allen.
Motion declared carried.
Bill read a Second Time.
It is proposed to take the Committee Stage now.