I move that the Bill be read a Second Time.
Supplementary Estimate. - Expiring Laws Bill, 1930—Second Stage.
There are several Bills on this list the subject-matters of which, I think, could have been dealt with since a similar Bill of the kind was passed, but there is one in particular that is, to my mind, a rather urgent matter, and that is the Motor Car Act. The subject matter of that Act has been, I think, discussed here in this House. There have been inquiries about it, and promises have been made by the Government to have a Bill introduced to bring this legislation up to date. I think the promises have been repeated, and notwithstanding the promises we are still without the Bill. There are many people who think that this matter is an urgent one. The subject of motoring and the regulations that are necessary with regard to it are not at all up-to-date. The regulations in general governing the conduct of motorists and motor traction in general are not what they should be, and they are not by any means as up-to-date as such legislation is in neighbouring countries. One item alone is brought out in the summary issued by the Department of Local Government. Under this section a person is prohibited from driving a motor car on a public road at a speed exceeding 20 miles an hour.
I wonder what Deputy in this House who has a motor car obeys that section of the Act. That one section alone is indicative of the state of legislation on the subject of motoring. There are some people on this side who think the matter is urgent and believe that despite the fact that the Ministry is engaged in bringing in a lot of legislation in view of an early general election that this question of the laws relating to motoring is a very urgent one and that perhaps some of the popular legislation that might suit between now and the date of the general election to encourage people to look more favourably on Cumann na nGaedheal candidates might be left aside, and that any measures of an urgent nature such as this question of motor legislation should be given precedence. I think unless the Minister can give us a guarantee that an early opportunity will be taken to keep the promise made to introduce legislation dealing with this matter we must vote against the Bill as a whole. We cannot vote against that particular item on the schedule, and as we cannot do that, unless we get some satisfactory explanation or promise that this legislation will be introduced we will have to vote against the Bill.
May I call attention to the fact that last year the Minister deprecated any criticism of this Motor Car Act when the Expiring Laws Bill was going through the House? He said:
"To attempt to discuss small points in traffic administration without adequate notice is very difficult, and, I suggest, on the eve of the introduction of a Bill which will codify and put into satisfactory condition our traffic law based on modern conditions and on the consideration that has been given to the matter by the Traffic Committee, would not be very profitable."
If it were not for that promise a number of the Deputies on this side of the House would have insisted on proposing amendments to this particular Act, because it was felt that the whole position in regard to road traffic was very urgently in need of review and amendment. It will be remembered that some time after that the Minister introduced a Road Traffic Bill, and when we resumed in the spring he asked leave to withdraw it as he was not prepared to go on. It is very extraordinary now that he comes along and asks us to approve of the same Act of 1923 still being continued in force and makes no mention of when he will be ready with this new legislation.
He must surely admit that there is a crying demand for such legislation and that there is urgent need for it. There have been a number of shocking accidents, largely due to the lack of regulations. He must admit, too, that there is a growing increase in bus traffic in the Saorstát, and it is not too much to say, both from the point of view of the passengers in these public vehicles and from the point of view of people using the roads, there is hourly danger of the loss of life through the lack of Government regulations. In many cases I know that parents living near the roadside are in perpetual worry as to the fate of their children. There have been cases where parents avoided sending their children to school because they were afraid of the fate they would encounter through these public vehicles not being under proper control. In face of all that, I think Deputy O'Kelly's proposal is a wise one, that the House should not allow this Bill to go through without a definite statement from the Minister as to the exact date when the new Traffic Bill will be brought in.
I would like to urge on the Minister the necessity of taking some steps to deal with this problem. Deputy O'Kelly has pointed out that at present a motor car cannot exceed 20 miles an hour without breaking the law. Might I remind the Minister that that is not one of the worst flaws in the existing Act? As I understand the existing Act, a blind man can apply for a licence to drive a motor car, and there are no powers to refuse him.
And a bus, too.
In view of these things, surely we are entitled to demand from the Minister some explanation as to why such matters have been allowed to remain so long in that position.
If Deputies were a bit more explicit as to the matters which require to be remedied than they have been in the discussion here we might see whether under the existing regulations we could not do something to meet them. Before Christmas of last year I did ask for permission to introduce a Traffic Bill. When the Dáil met again in the spring to discuss legislation, I found that I was not able to get the Bill drafted in time to have a Second Reading then and I asked for permission to withdraw the Bill. The reason for the delay in the introduction of the measure is not because of any lack of effort on the part of the Department of Local Government or of the other Departments concerned in the matter.
Legislation dealing with traffic involves a number of Departments, and it involves the public in quite a number of different ways. I still hope to be able to introduce a Traffic Bill before Christmas so that the Dáil can discuss it in the spring. I do not hold that out as an invitation to Deputies on the opposite side or to any Deputies in the House to restrain their criticism. When I objected to criticism both on the Combined Purchasing Act and on the Traffic Act here last year I objected to Deputies raising points of detailed criticism on these matters on the Expiring Laws Bill when they could be much more effectively raised in a different way. Many of thorn could be much more. satisfactorily raised and dealt with by representations to the Department without taking up the time of the House here at all.
All that I can say with regard to the Traffic Bill is that I on my part and the various Departments concerned are doing our best to get the proposed measure into such shape that we can put it into the hands of Deputies before Christmas. The drafting of the measure is very far advanced, but there are some outstanding points that are of importance, and because they are intricate they had much better be hammered out between the different Departments concerned. It had much better be done that way than throw a measure half prepared, on certain points at any rate, into the discussion of this House. It would take up much more time in discussion and perhaps arrive at a less satisfactory conclusion.
There will be nothing in the Traffic Bill, as far as I know, that will prevent children wandering on the roads and being rolled over if they are wandering carelessly. Deputy Moore seems to think there is something radically wrong in our legislation dealing with traffic and, because of that radical difficulty, persons who are driving buses and driving motor cars are endangering the lives of children on the roads in a way in which they would not endanger them if proper legislation were introduced.
It is a fairly general belief.
Gracious me, what general beliefs we do come up against here that are nothing but futilities and nonsense! If there are blind men going around driving buses and motor cars, as Deputy Davin suggests——
I have not said a word so far.
I took it as an implication on the part of Deputy Davin, and he may not be responsible; but, at any rate, it was suggested here that blind people are driving motor cars.
It has been suggested that they are entitled to apply for licences and there is no power to refuse them.
There are enough difficulties that we really do meet and that are sufficient to spur us to the necessary action in this matter without conjuring up things which are nothing but mere inventions.
I do not want to be unfair to the Minister, but I may say that people who are mentally deficient can apply and obtain licences and go out on the roadways and do an immense amount of damage.
In so far as the mental deficiency is of a kind that interferes with the capacity to drive, then, so far as that is apparent, I think the Civic Guards are pretty careful; they exercise every care in their view of the traffic position.
They have no power whatever on the point that I have referred to.
We recognise quite well the necessity for the introduction at the earliest possible moment of a new traffic measure.
I would like to resume the history of the Road Traffic Act to which the Minister has adverted. The Minister stated that he thinks he hopes to be able to promise to introduce this Bill.
I did not say such a thing.
Are we to understand that the measure will be introduced before the Christmas Recess?
I thought I made it clear that I and my Department and other Departments involved are doing our very best to get the new measure to the position when it can be introduced.
At the first meeting of the Dáil this year the Minister withdrew a Bill which was introduced last December. He said then the difficulty was that the Executive Council had not an opportunity of considering its policy in relation to many matters arising out of the Bill. He said the Bill would be reintroduced before the Summer Recess. Is his promise now of any greater value than the promise he made last March?
I am not asking the House now, nor did I then, to accept it as a promise. The Deputy can understand that I am making no promise good, bad or indifferent to the House on this matter. I am telling the House the fact is that I am doing my best to introduce the measure at the earliest possible moment.
The position is that an inter-Departmental committee was established. It went into this matter in great detail and submitted a report in 1928 as a result of which a Bill was introduced in 1929. That Bill was withdrawn in 1930 and there was a promise that it would be reintroduced in June, 1930. It was not reintroduced. It is once more promised for December, 1930, and in all probability it will not be introduced then either. It seems to me the Government are not taking this matter seriously. The Minister's attempt to contend that the non-introduction of the measure is having no effect on the number of accidents caused daily will convince nobody. There are on the average four people killed every week in this country in consequence of motor accidents. Is it seriously contended that a large number of accidents are not due to the fact that there are people driving cars who have been convicted of reckless driving or of driving under the influence of drink? Secondly, there is the important point that cyclists are not required to have rere lights on bicycles after dark, and persons driving cattle are not required to carry lights to indicate the position of the animals. Numbers of other matters were dealt with by the committee in its report. All these things could be dealt with by way of legislation and no great question of policy arises in connection with them. I believe that there is no reason for delaying this measure other than the laziness of the Department of Local Government. Arising out of the Harbours, Docks and Piers (Temporary Increase of Charges) Act, 1920, which is also being continued, I would like to be informed how soon will legislation following on the report of the Port and Harbours Tribunal be introduced.
To be quite safe, I would say in about three years' time.
Apparently the efficiency of the Department of Industry and Commerce is as high as that of the Department of Local Government. If the Minister has any say in the matter can we take it that the Bill will be introduced in three years' time?
I would like to qualify it by saying in about three years' time.
On behalf of the Party that will probably be in office in three, years' time, I can give a definite promise that it will be introduced.
I understood that when a Minister comes before the House to ask for leave to introduce a Bill, the Bill is supposed to be actually in draft. Has the Minister asked our leave to introduce a Bill the rough outline of which had not been considered at the time?
I would like to impress on the Minister for Local Government the desirability of immediately tackling this matter of motor traffic. I would like to point out that an Act of the British Parliament was recently put in operation, and the question is much more complicated there. All the Minister might do would be to get his headlines from them.
It would not be the first time they took a headline from London.
I hope the Minister will not treat the question of a driver's licence as he would appear to have treated it this afternoon when it was raised by Deputy Good. I would like to add something to what Deputy Good said about blind men getting licences. I believe that some years ago an elephant in the Zoo got a licence to drive a motor car. That happened in the case of Jumbo, the famous elephant in the London Zoo, and the licence was taken out in order to test the matter. We are working under the same Act. I have an experience of twenty-five years in driving motor cars. Twenty-five years ago it was expected that the law would be amended at once, but it is still unamended. It went so far that the Royal Irish Constabulary started testing drivers so that they might carry on when the new Act would come in.
One of the futilities which is a general belief in this House is that the Minister will not tolerate questions on matters upon which we are entitled to ask questions. He seems to have a completely wrong conception of the duties of Deputies. When matters are put forward in detailed form he declares that he has had no notice. Here is a Bill that has come before us to-day, and surely he should have full information now on the subject of that Bill. Yet, when matters of detail are put to the Minister he lectures us like schoolboys in a most offensive manner. The instances mentioned here to-day were simply instances of defects and anomalies which are making traffic so dangerous. As a matter of fact, in some parts of the country the people are so terrorised by motor cars that you will see the unfortunate people with their donkey carts driven up on the ditches. This terror is created by some of the larger vehicles. For that reason it is full time that this Bill was introduced. The Minister, by his neglect of this matter, is making himself responsible for the casualties which are at present occurring on the roads of the country. It will not do for him to get up in this House with a stiff back and lecture members of this House who represent hundreds of thousands of electors of this country, and tell them that they have no right to ask questions on this matter.
The Deputy is having a good wash of his hands.
Will the Minister explain that?
Will the Minister say whether he himself drives a car at more than twenty miles an hour?
I do not drive a car.
Does the Minister toler ate the driving of a car in which he is travelling at more than twenty miles an hour?
I am usually wrapt in thought, and do not mind what the driver does.
May I again ask the Minister to explain what he means by saying that I am having a good wash of my hands? I am entitled to an explanation. It is a personal charge.
It is not a personal charge. The point of view of the Ceann Comhairle is that if missing the explanation means greater calm, then the explanation should be missed.
I would like to reply to the question raised by Deputy Davin. It was with the idea of conveniencing the House that I asked permission for the introduction of this measure before last Christmas, because there was in my opinion sufficient work done and sufficient decisions taken to hope that it might be possible to get the draft of the Bill put into the hands of the Deputies in the Spring. That hope did not materialise. I think the House will understand that desirability in order that the Bill may be fully studied before the Second Reading after the adjournment. It is for that reason that I wanted the First Reading taken, even though the Minister is not able to place the Bill actually in the hands of Deputies on the morrow of the introduction of the measure.
Am I to understand then that the cause of the failure is due to the amount of work in the hands of the draftsman's department?
No.
I would like to ask the Minister whether we are going to have any sort of permanent legislation in connection with the county schemes. The position at the moment is certainly very unsatisfactory. As one who voted for the amalgamation of the Unions in the old days in the time of the first Dáil I must say that I am certainly very much disappointed with the arrangements made from time to time by the Minister. I think it was clearly understood by anybody who had anything to do with the amalgamation in 1920 that it was the intention of the Ministry to have accommodation for fever patients in more than one town in a county. The position in Wexford is certainly very serious. The County Fever Hospital under the original scheme was situated at Wexford. Since then it has been transferred to New Ross. I think the Minister will agree when I say that a town with 12,000 inhabitants should not be left without a Fever Hospital. Certainly patients should not have to be transferred to an hospital twenty-five miles away. Further, Wexford is a seaport town and the inhabitants there are consequently in more danger of contracting fever than in an inland town, by reason of the fact that there is a good deal of sea traffic day after day.
I do hope that the Minister will apply himself to a situation of that kind and that he will not allow anything permanent to be done in connection with the establishment of hospitals until we have permanent legislation. I have always advocated that, so far as Wexford is concerned, we should have a fever hospital in our seaport town, and I think that should apply in every case, because medical opinion will, I think, agree when I say that a person who has a high temperature should not be dragged around the country in a motor car, because such persons are more susceptible to colds and pneumonia when the temperature is high. I would ask the Minister to apply himself to that side of the question.
There, is another matter to which I would like to draw the Minister's attention. Under the Labourers (Ireland) Act, there are improvement schemes for providing houses for agricultural labourers. I would like to know from the Minister what his intentions are, so far as the building of houses in rural areas is concerned. Since the start of the war in 1914 very few houses were built, and while the Minister may say that there is not the same need for houses in rural Ireland as there is in urban Ireland, I would say that that may apply to isolated cases. There are a great number of large villages and small villages, too, in the various counties in the Saorstát, where housing is as bad as, if not worse than, in the urban centres. I think that the Minister should do something now in an endeavour to secure that houses will be built in these areas. Some county boards of health have been crying out for the same terms to deal with houses as are given elsewhere—an extension of the Local Loans Fund. I would like to take this opportunity to point out that that would not be sufficient for these areas, that something more would have to be done, and that the county boards of health that are asking for these powers to be conferred on them are not asking for sufficient and do not realise what they are up against. I would ask the Minister if anything has been done in this connection.
On the general question of the poor law I said in my statement last year that the Department was concerning itself with the codification of the poor law principally to convenience local bodies and officials of local bodies in dealing with the law. There is nothing in the point which Deputy Corish raised as to the institutions here and there that cannot be dealt with under the present system, because the county scheme can be changed by order. Without encouraging a discussion of detailed points in connection with this measure, I may mention that hospital accommodation in Wexford is a matter that has been under review by my Department. It is a question of arrangement between the Department and local bodies as to what kind of arrangement will be established there. What we are doing under the Labourers Acts here is: we are deciding whether the laws that are the foundation of our Labourers Acts, and that have been permanent for 29 years or more, will be kept so as to enable us to deal with houses for labourers in rural areas on the lines on which we are dealing with them. Whether we are going to change any part of our policy in respect of rural housing is not a question that I am prepared to discuss at this present moment any more than I am prepared to discuss any possible changes in our policy with regard to urban housing. I think the occasion is not suitable for it.
Might I say this much, that as the statement made by the Minister is unsatisfactory in so far as he will not give us any definite promise of the approximate date when the Traffic Bill will be introduced, we will have to vote against this Bill.
Question put. The Dáil divided: Tá, 79; Níl, 43.
Tá
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Aird, William P.Alton, Ernest Henry.Anthony, Richard.Beckett, James Walter.Bennett, George Cecil.Blythe, Ernest.Bourke, Séamus A.Brennan, Michael.Brodrick, Seán.Byrne, John Joseph.Carey, Edmund.Cassidy, Archie J.Coburn, James.Cole, John James.Collins-O'Driscoll, Mrs. Margt.Colohan, Hugh.Conlon, Martin.Connolly, Michael P.Corish, Richard.Cosgrave, William T.Craig, Sir James.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.Fitzgerald, Desmond.Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.Gorey, Denis J.Haslett, Alexander.Heffernan, Michael R.Hennessy, Michael Joseph.Hennessy, Thomas.Hennigan, John. |
Henry, Mark.Hogan, Patrick (Clare).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.O'Connell, Thomas J.O'Donovan, Timothy Joseph.O'Hanlon, John F.O'Higgins, Thomas.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, John.White, Vincent Joseph.Wolfe, George.Wolfe, Jasper Travers. |
Níl
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Aiken, Frank.Allen, Denis.Blaney, Neal.Boland, Gerald.Boland, Patrick.Bourke, Daniel.Briscoe, Robert.Buckley, Daniel.Carney, Frank.Carty, Frank.Clery, Michael.Colbert, James.Cooney, Eamon.Corry, Martin John.Crowley, Fred. Hugh.Crowley, Tadhg. O'Kelly, Seán T.O'Reilly, Matthew.O'Reilly, Thomas.Powell, Thomas P.Ryan, James.Sexton, Martin. |
Derrig, Thomas.De Valera, Eamon.Fahy, Frank.Gorry, Patrick J.Goulding, John.Hayes, Seán.Houlihan, Patrick.Jordan, Stephen.Killilea, Mark.Kilroy, Michael.Lemass, Seán F.Little, Patrick John.Maguire, Ben.MacEntee, Seán.Moore, Séamus.O'Dowd, Patrick Joseph. Sheehy, Timothy (Tipp.).Smith, Patrick.Tubridy, John.Walsh, Richard.Ward, Francis C. |
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Duggan and P.S. Doyle; Níl, Deputies G. Boland and Allen.
Question declared carried.
Bill read a Second Time.
Committee Stage to be taken on Wednesday, 3rd December.