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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 14 Feb 1935

Vol. 54 No. 12

In Committee. - Control of Imports Orders. Motions of Approval.

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. Lemass)

I move:

That Dáil Eireann hereby approves of Control of Imports (Quota No. 9) Order, 1934, made on the 19th day of October, 1934, by the Executive Council under the Control of Imports Act, 1934 (No. 12 of 1934).

I explained yesterday, during the discussion upon the resolution affecting Quota No. 8 Order, the circumstances under which this order was made. Orders 8, 9 and 10 were made together, and for the same purpose, to regulate imports of completely assembled motor cars, motor chassis and botor bodies. The main order was No. 8. No. 9 relates to chassis only and is consequential. A quota of 100 for the first period of slightly over six months was fixed, but it is the intention to eliminate the complete chassis as quickly as possible.

General Mulcahy

The Minister dealt briefly with this matter yesterday, and when questioned by Deputy MacDermot as to the effect on the revenue generally of the operations of these various quota orders, in respect to the motor industry, he said he did not know what the effect was going to be. The Minister pretends to the House that he is dealing systematically and effectively with the establishment of the motor assembly industry here, but he declines, as I stated when dealing with the other orders, to give the House any information with regard to it. The position with regard to imported motor cars, taking the years 1929, 1930 to 1931, is that the number of touring cars imported in 1929 was 7,627; in 1930, 7,560, and in 1931, 7,333. When Fianna Fáil policy hit this country in 1932 that was reflected in the import of motor cars, only 2,903 being imported in that year as against over 7,000 in each of the previous three years.

Mr. Lemass

That was 2,000 too many.

General Mulcahy

The imports of motor cars in 1933 were 2,508 and in 1934, 2,576.

Mr. Lemass

And in 1935 they will be nothing.

General Mulcahy

The imports of motor chassis in 1929 were 777; in 1930, 712; in 1931, 839; in 1932, 810; in 1933, 811; in 1934, 2,412. The Minister is obviously developing the motor industry here, but the policy of the Government is creating a situation whereby the people are less able to use motor cars. The price that the people have to pay for these cars is infinitely greater than they have to pay in the Six Counties. The total employment the Minister considers can be given in the motor car industry here amounts to 1,000 persons, but there is going to be a definite drop in the revenue. Without having seen the Orders, the Minister asks the House to pass resolutions empowering him to go blindly along the path he is travelling, without getting any information as to the number of cars likely to be used, the cost of these cars here, and the effect on the revenue. The Minister may claim that he does not know what is going to happen under some of these headings. Again, where it was possible for other Ministers to give certain information when asked for it, he systematically refused to give it. When asked yesterday what the effect was going to be on the revenue, he said he could not say. The Minister for Finance approached the matter in a different spirit, but he may not be fighting the same corner. When replying to a question yesterday with regard to motor cars, the Minister for Finance said the duty in 1933 was £150,397, in 1934, £162,302 and for three months, approximately from the 20th October to the 31st January, 1935, £23,000. At that rate, for the whole year the duty would approximate to £82,000, and it is an indication that the full amount of duty on motor cars imported would be half what it was last year. The Minister implied that he hopes to wipe out the whole of that, so that on the import of motor cars alone this policy was going to cost the revenue £162,000.

Mr. Lemass

But it is not.

General Mulcahy

I am quite sure the House, when discussing this in a constructive spirit, would like to hear something from the Minister for Industry and Commerce on that matter. When invited to deal with it yesterday, he declined to say anything about it. The Minister for Finance, in reply to a question, stated that the total duty received on completely assembled chassis in 1933 was £53,557, and in 1934, £39,890. At the present rate the prospective yield for this year would be about £10,800, so that £26,000 less would go to the revenue on the importation of chassis during the current year. The Minister for Industry and Commerce hopes to wipe out all that; hopes to take the whole £37,000 from the revenue receipts under that heading.

Then a smaller amount, something not exceeding £1,000, is going to be lost to the revenue when the whole of this matter is worked out under Quota Order No. 10. The motor-car assembling industry is of importance to this country. No one will deny that the mechanical and technical work connected with it is a valuable kind of work to have done here. It is valuable for our people to get an opportunity of putting their hands to that particular class of work, so that they may spread from that to other classes of work, but it is definitely unfair to the future of the industry which has been started that the Minister should treat the subject in this way. He has had it definitely put to him here—and there is no doubt that he has also had it put to him privately—that some of the industry which has been started under his fosterage in this way is not likely to last economically; that greater costs are going to be paid for cars; that, even with those greater costs, the capital involved in setting up some part of this industry is not going to be recouped, and then there is this substantial loss to the revenue which is indicated here, at a time when every action of the Government in handling money shows that the revenue is not in a satisfactory position. As I say, the discussion on this matter is restricted to this particular type of discussion. It is embarked on without any of the orders being in the hands of any Deputies of the House, and without any general statement of policy or any simple statement of fact placed before them by the Minister for Industry and Commerce. He has dealt with the matter in a very reckless and irresponsible way, and his attitude to the House is nothing but an insolent one.

Mr. Moore

I suppose nothing is going to prevent Deputy Mulcahy from forcing a division on this resolution, as he did on similar resolutions yesterday, but, before we divide, some of us would like to be quite certain as to what we are going to vote on. What is Deputy Mulcahy's particular grievance? Is he quite sure of his ground when he says that the capital which is being invested in motor-car assembly is in danger, that it is not going to be remunerative, and that those enterprises are not on a sure foundation? Has he had any communication with the people who have embarked on this line of development to justify him in making such a statement? I think if he inquires from the people who have gone into that business he will find that they have no nervousness whatever, and that as a matter of fact they would not be at all agreeable to a return to the system of importing complete cars in preference to assembling the cars here as they are now doing. He talks of recklessness on the part of the Government, but I suggest that he himself should be more careful than to make such reckless statements as those.

General Mulcahy

Tell us something about the business.

Mr. Moore

I am trying to find out something of the Deputy's grievances.

General Mulcahy

Does the Deputy not understand that the attitude of the people who have been engaged in the motor industry here, and who have been trying to keep pace with the Minister in respect of those orders is: "Oh, for God's sake let the Minister alone at the moment to do what he is at now. He has been shifting and twisting and turning, going in seven different directions at the same time Now he has pinned himself down to one particular direction which he is likely to be able to stay in for a year or two. Do nothing that would make him twist and turn again inside the next six months." Is not that the position and does not the Deputy know it?

Mr. Moore

I am afraid I got very little from all that declamation. I took one particular statement of the Deputy —that the capital which was being invested in motor car assembly was capital which was likely to be wasted. I asked him what authority he had for that statement. Has he the authority of Messrs. Ford?

General Mulcahy

Of whom?

Mr. Moore

Of Messrs. Ford.

General Mulcahy

Go on over the rest of them.

Mr. Moore

Has he authority from Messrs. O'Neill, Summerfield, McCairns or McEntaggart? I think these are the principal firms engaged in the business at the moment. I am sure that if he went to them for support for the daring statement which he has made he would get a very cool reception. Again, when he says that the prices of the cars have been increased as a result of this development, is he quite sure of his ground? As a matter of fact, the first car which was assembled was selling at a lower price than that at which the same model was being sold in Great Britain and that may be so still. I can tell him further, and he should be glad to hear it, that the directors, having seen the models that have been turned out here, expressed their complete surprise that such splendid work could be done in this country, especially at the start off. What then is the Deputy's grievance? He wants to know about the employment that is to be given. Some of those firms have only just gone into production. In the case of some of them their premises are not yet complete. How can the Minister or anybody else state what the employment is going to be, or conjecture what the demand is going to be during the present year? If the country is bankrupt, as the Deputy suggests, no doubt there will be very few cars sold, but that is not the expectation of those who are assembling the cars. The state of their business generally does not at all indicate that there are going to be no sales. They are very well satisfied, I know, with their prospects, and there is not one of them engaged in the business up to the present time who does not think that the Government has done an excellent thing in bringing about this change. The only people who are agrieved are the people who, perhaps for political reasons, have refused to conform to the Government's desires in this matter, and have not attempted to adopt government policy.

Mr. MacDermot

Has the Deputy got a shred of evidence suggesting political reasons?

Mr. Lemass

It is published in the newspapers.

Mr. Moore

I have got a lot of evidence indeed. They were in at least as good a position with regard to capital as those firms who have gone into the industry. In fact some of them were in a far better position, and they had never once put up a reason for refusing to go into this business except that they did not believe in it, that they were opposed to the Government, and were opposed to the whole policy of attempting to build motor cars in this country.

Mr. MacDermot

Did they not say that they thought that they would lose money on it?

Mr. Lemass

Not as much as they are losing by staying out of it.

Mr. Moore

It would hardly be fair to the individuals to discuss them here, and I did not want to make mention of them except in a general way. This development has been productive of considerable employment. As Deputy Mulcahy himself admitted, it is healthy employment; it is very remunerative; it is the sort of employment that should be particularly welcomed in the present position of industry, inasmuch as it means employment for males, and skilled employment particularly. It is not merely in the motor-car assembly but in the coachbuilding line that the new policy has brought excellent results. I think if Deputy Mulcahy inquires he will find that the progress in that industry, and the amount of new work which has come to skilled men who are earning high wages, are things which we ought to be most proud of, and with which it would be most reckless to interfere. Taking those things into account, I should like —provided the Deputy has permission to do it—if he would even now tell us what his grievances are. I am still astray as to what I am going to vote on.

General Mulcahy

Of course you are, and so is every Deputy in the House.

Mr. Moore

The Deputy is, I take it, going to call a division, and I think he should put more clearly what his position is. There is no use in mixing up a whole lot of points, some of which obviously he has no grounds for stating at all. If he can pick out a particular matter on which he thinks there is more information required, or on which he thinks the Government is going wrong, then we can really know what it is we are going to divide on and we can be more sympathetic to him in his present position.

Mr. MacDermot

I think it is very offensive and very silly at the same time for the Deputy to suggest that any business man is going to cut his own throat for political reasons. The Deputy said that he had evidence of political motives, but he did not mention what the evidence was. I refuse to believe, without strong proof being adduced, that intelligent, educated and successful business men will refrain from making use of an avenue of profit which the Minister for Industry and Commerce thinks he has opened up for them out of spite against the Government. I think the thing is quite incredible. My own feeling is not one of any particular violence against the policy of the Government in this respect with regard to the motor car industry, but I do think that it will probably turn out that the Minister for Industry and Commerce has been a false friend to such businesses as the Deputy has just mentioned—Summerfield, Treacy and others—that those business will lose money, and that only the Ford factories, amongst the protected industry, will be able to make a good thing out of it. If they do not lose money it will be because they will start doing less and less skilled work over here, and because they succeed in inducing the Minister, as time goes on, to make them concessions which will put their business almost back on the old basis again.

General Mulcahy

If I may be disorderly in replying to Deputy Moore, I just want to say that we propose to vote against this motion, as we voted against the others, for the reason that Deputy Moore and the Minister and the Minister's colleagues have combined to operate here, in discussing this matter, a system which enables Deputy Moore to get up and make cheap fluffy statements about a matter without bringing forward any facts, and to ask cheaper questions which cannot be answered inside the orderly rules of the House.

Mr. Cosgrave

Can the Minister say whether any objection has been made to firms which have been selling cars here coming into the country to manufacture cars unless they are prepared to establish Irish companies?

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister to conclude.

Mr. Lemass

That question, of course, does not arise on this resolution. It is obviously one of which I would require notice. The general tenor of the debate has left me as it has left Deputy Moore——

Mr. Anthony

Is the Minister concluding?

An Ceann Comhairle

Yes.

Mr. Anthony

I thought the Minister was only replying to the question asked by Deputy Cosgrave.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister was called upon to conclude. The Deputy will have an opportunity of speaking on the next resolution, which deals with motor bodies.

Mr. Lemass

The resolution we are discussing deals with motor chassis. I, like Deputy Moore, am left completely in the dark as to what is troubling Deputy Mulcahy and his colleagues. Deputy Mulcahy apparently decided to begin his speech on this matter by indicating the extent to which the Government of which he was a member neglected the industrial possibilities of the country by quoting for us the number of completed motor cars imported from abroad during the years 1929, 1930, and 1931. I do not know what he thinks he was achieving by reading these figures except affording an indication to the House and to those listening to him of what might have been done in those years if the Government then in office had the least interest in developing our industrial possibilities or in affording employment for Irish workers. Every car that was imported in 1929, 1930 and 1931 could have afforded employment for a skilled Irish worker for six weeks. It is one of the things of which I am very proud that we have succeeded almost entirely in eliminating that particular item from our import list. In the year 1932 a beginning was made by the duties then imposed and a conclusion is now being effected to that policy by these import orders.

The industry has been established. It has been well established on lines similar to those adopted in most other countries. There is very little international trade in completed motor cars at the present time. The Deputy spoke as if the idea of this assembling industry originated with the Government of the Irish Free State and was operated here and here only. It is true that we may have given a lead to other countries in that connection. They have all followed the lead so that a similar industry to our own is now in operation in practically every country. The work of assembling motor chassis, like the work of assembling complete cars, is being undertaken here by a number of concerns and they are doing it very competently. As Deputy Moore remarked, the directors and managers of the parent companies that manufacture parts have taken the opportunities that we gave them of expressing their appreciation of the skill of Irish workers and of the managerial capacity of those who are directing them in this industry here. The prices at which the complete cars have been sold are, in consequence of the various changes in duties which have been brought into operation, being reduced. It is true, as Deputy Moore said, that most of the American cars that are on sale here are on sale at prices lower than those charged for corresponding models in Great Britain. The development of the industry is going to mean that that position will be maintained and improved upon because, of course, with increased production each one of these concerns will be able to reduce its costs.

Mr. MacDermot

The Minister used the phrase "Most of the American cars." I take it that what he meant was most American makes of cars.

Mr. Lemass

Yes. It is not possible to say what the effect of this is going to be on the revenue because, of course, it is not possible to say how many cars are going to be sold this year. But Deputy Mulcahy assumes that all the revenue collected from Customs duties on imported cars is going to be lost. That is not so because a Customs duty is still chargeable on the parts of bodies and parts of chassis imported in a knocked-down condition. The duty charged on these parts will yield revenue to the Exchequer to compensate for the loss of revenue that may be occasioned by the cessation of complete car importations. There will be a certain loss of revenue arising from the fact that a concession is to be given in the Road Fund tax on those Irish-assembled cars. The full benefit of that concession will be enjoyed by the users of the cars.

Mr. Cosgrave

Would the Minister say what that will amount to?

Mr. Lemass

The maximum amount of tax in respect of horse-power.

Mr. Cosgrave

Can the Minister give a round figure?

Mr. Lemass

It is not possible to give any figure at present, but the concession is going to operate on high-powered cars.

Mr. Cosgrave

And that will mean less work on the-roads to the extent of the concession.

Mr. Lemass

No, because if the Deputy were able to appreciate the cleverness of the Government he would know that high-powered cars consume more petrol, and that therefore what you lose in one direction you get back in the other.

Mr. Cosgrave

If the consumption of petrol is less, then obviously there will be less money to go to the Road Fund.

Mr. Lemass

The consumption of petrol is not less.

Mr. Cosgrave

Will it not be 30,000 gallons less?

Mr. Lemass

What is that? You would burn it in a day.

Mr. Cosgrave

If there is less money for the Road Fund there will consequently be less employment on the roads.

Mr. Lemass

If the Deputy wants any information with regard to the Road Fund he can get it by adopting the usual course of putting down a parliamentary question.

General Mulcahy

The Minister does not want to give the information.

Mr. Lemass

What information does the Deputy want?

General Mulcahy

The number of men on the roads.

Mr. Lemass

The Deputy can get that information by asking a parliamentary question in the proper form.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputies seem to be speeding away from the subject.

General Mulcahy

Anything but the subject.

Mr. Lemass

Deputy Mulcahy is maintaining the campaign which he embarked on yesterday, the purpose of which is to try to create the impression that in some way the Government has been refusing him information. It is true that he asked a number of silly questions about these Quota Orders, the answers to which would have necessitated turning about 800 civil servants on to that task for at least a week and the information resulting from which work would have been of no value to anybody, not even to Deputy Mulcahy. If any relevant information is desired, any information that is worth the trouble of getting, it can be and will be readily supplied, but a whole lot of unnecessary information concerning the people on the register of importers and things of that kind cannot be supplied, because the officers of the Department of Industry and Commerce have much more useful work to do and that useful work is reflected in the industrial results now evident throughout the country.

Mr. Cosgrave

The Minister will admit that yesterday he said he had had to amend an Order a short time after it was made. If he had had that information, he might not have had to amend the Order.

Mr. Lemass

I cannot answer the Deputy without breaking the rules of procedure, because I have already concluded.

General Mulcahy

The rules of what?

Mr. Lemass

Procedure.

Question put.

The Dáil divided: Tá, 61; Níl, 31.

Tá.

Níl.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Smith; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Bennett.

Question declared carried.

Mr. Lemass

I move:—

That Dáil Eireann hereby approves of Control of Imports ((Quota No. 10) Order, 1934, made on the 19th day of October, 1934, by the Executive Council under the Control of Imports Act, 1934 (No. 12 of 1934).

This order covers motor bodies and motor shells separately. The importation of motor bodies and motor shells separately is something which is done only transitionally by certain firms proposing to engage in this work. The quota for the previous six months period was fixed at 500. In due course these imports will cease, and in any case under the order the quota period will terminate the operation of this.

General Mulcahy

Deputy Moore was very puzzled to know why Deputies on these benches were adopting towards these resolutions the attitude they are adopting. He asked a question under circumstances in which entirely within his own power and the power of the Minister I was prevented from replying to him. When I get an opportunity under this resolution to reply to him, Deputy Moore conveniently clears out of the House.

Mr. Lemass

On a point of order, would the Deputy be in order in replying to Deputy Moore?

An Ceann Comhairle

Yes, if the Deputy's reply is relevant to this analogous quota order.

General Mulcahy

In any case if Deputy Moore would listen to what is being said he would know.

Mr. Brady

He did not know Deputy Mulcahy was to speak again.

General Mulcahy

If he were listening yesterday when important industrial matters were being discussed here, he would not have been under the necessity of asking the question to-day. We are dealing here with an industry which the Minister for Industry and Commerce considers is important.

Mr. Lemass

No, not this time.

General Mulcahy

Well, the last three orders deal with the motor assembly industry and in order to develop it here the Minister has created and is creating the greatest possible chaos amongst those people who were earning their livelihood here in connection with the motor industry. He has dislocated the whole commercial side of the industry. In spite of what Deputy Moore has said and what the Minister has left unsaid, the Minister is putting a very big impost upon people in connection with cars and he is taking considerable sums of money out of revenue. The motor industry must, in the Minister's eyes, be giving a considerable amount of employment or he would not be doing all this. But in dealing with the matter in the House the Minister adopts a method that practically prevents discussion. As far as the members of this House are concerned the position is that a notice appears in Iris Oifigiúil that a particular quota has been issued. There is nothing in the Iris Oifigiúil to show whether it is bull's eyes or glass eyes or boots or glass or shirts. No Deputy up to the present has got any copy of these orders. Until yesterday no Deputy could have seen any of the orders that indicated the quota. No Deputy has got any indication of any kind in any of the order papers issued that these papers are available in the library and the type of discussion which the Minister insists will take place on these matters here is a Second Reading discussion. In our opinion, matters of importance cannot be dealt with in that way here. The President has gone some distance to redress the absurd position that exists and has promised that the order in connection with any of these things will be circulated to Deputies in future. The very type of intervention we have had from Deputy Moore ought to persuade the Minister that it would be much more satisfactory from his point of view as well as from the point of view of the people interested in the industry here, if a different type of discussion took place. I would like to hear the Minister support the arguments that Deputy Moore attempted to put up. They were not arguments but generalisations—not backed by a single fact. I would like the Minister to tell the House how he makes out that motor cars here are to be cheaper than in Northern Ireland; and that the cost to the revenue and the cost of cars to the people here are to be such as to be in any way worthy of the increased employment that is to be given. If the Minister has a case to make about these things he ought to make it here. Otherwise he is taking up, in a casual way and certainly without the knowledge of the House, most dictatorial powers and he is precluding discussion by refusing to put in a plain statement before us. It is for this reason that these orders are being made. The House is no wiser now in relation to any of these things.

Mr. Lemass

I did my best.

General Mulcahy

The Minister did his best to keep from the House the facts. He withheld from the House facts which were within his knowledge and in other cases in the most cold-blooded and brutal way he declined to give these facts in reply to a Parliamentary question.

Mr. Anthony

While there is something to be said and perhaps a good deal to be said about the manner in which the Minister for Industry and Commerce has approached matters of a similar character before, and for the manner in which he has approached these two motions for the control of imports, at the same time while there has been a considerable lack of detail in most of these matters of a similar character that have come before us, I would like to point out to Deputy Mulcahy the fact that this industry gives considerable employment to male adults. That, in my view, is one of the best recommendations it can get. The fact also that the cars assembled here, in turn-out, in finish and in every other way have earned the good opinions of persons not alone in this country but in other countries, who are capable of judging, should, in my view, commend this order not alone to the Fianna Fáil Party but to the members of the United Ireland Party as well.

In this respect, too, in my view, it is a departure from the policy that has been adopted by the Minister since the advent of Fianna Fáil to power. We have had a number of factories set up in this country which, in my view, are not worth "tuppence" to the male adult population.

An Ceann Comhairle

And which, in view of the Ceann Comhairle, have nothing to do with this Quota Order.

Mr. Anthony

Yes, Sir, but I think I am entitled to relate it to the quotas.

An Ceann Comhairle

Very well.

Mr. Anthony

The fact, at any rate, remains that this is an attempt, in my view almost the first attempt—I may be wrong, but I think it is the first attempt—to provide for adult males, some decent and well-paid employment in this country. The question of revenue has been raised. Whether there will be a loss of revenue to the State or not is a matter for conjecture, but, even if there is a small loss, it will be more than set off by the increased employment that will result after the Quota Order becomes effective. The question has again been raised by Deputy Mulcahy that it may mean an increase in the cost of cars. He has not said what kind of cars. If it may result in a slight increase in the price of imported cars, that will be more than offset by the employment given. I am aware that in Cork City alone increased employment has resulted because of the enterprise of the Ford firm, and I feel that when this Order comes into full operation it will result in interesting other people in the manufacture of these commodities in this country. For that reason I support it.

Mr. Lemass

There is not very much to say in reply to the remarks of Deputy Mulcahy. Apparently his sole grievance in regard to this Order is that a copy of the Order was not sent to him. He said he did not see it. I am surprised he did not. It was published in all the daily newspapers, it was broadcast from the Broadcasting Station, and it received the usual amount of publicity. I gathered from Deputy Mulcahy that he does not read the morning papers. He reads Iris Oifigiúil with his breakfast coffee, perhaps Stubbs' Gazette in the middle of the day, and spends the night reading The Blueshirt which, of course, does not deal with matters of this kind. All the information that he could possibly have desired was available to him. If he merely had taken the trouble to come down here to the House, as was his duty as a Deputy, to inspect the records in the Dáil, he could have seen the actual text of the Order. A number of articles dealing with it appeared in the daily newspapers and could have been persued by any Deputy interested in the matter. I am very sorry he did not get all the information he required.

General Mulcahy

Are these to be substituted for Parliamentary government?

Mr. Lemass

If the Deputy wanted to get the Order officially he could have gone to the library for it. The statute required me to lay these Orders on the Table of the Dáil for the information of Deputies, and the provisions of the statute were carried out.

General Mulcahy

Is the Minister aware that the statute did not do that?

Mr. Lemass

Well, I did it.

General Mulcahy

After a long time.

Mr. Lemass

They were there for the Deputy or any other Deputy to inspect them, and he could have got all the information he wanted about them. He said that he could spend the whole day discussing these Orders and he would be no wiser in the end than he was in the beginning. I interrupted him to say that I had done my best. I hope to continue the educational process, so that in due course it will be evident to everybody that he is wiser than he has been. The Order in this case is not of very great importance. It is only one of a series required to foster the motor assembling industry, but the motor assembling industry would be fostered whether it is passed or not. There are very few people likely to be interested in the import of motor car bodies without the chassis attached, but if there are, this Order restricts them in respect of the number. In due course economic considerations will prevent their bringing them in, in any event. The principal Order, which refers to completely assembled cars, is the main one on which we are relying to develop the motor assembling industry, which is of considerable importance to the country and will become of greater importance in the future.

General Mulcahy

It is obvious that economic considerations, too, will compel the Minister to take the Dáil more into his confidence, and look for the assistance of the Dáil in these matters.

Mr. Lemass

I am anxiously looking forward to that assistance.

Question put.

The Dáil divided: Tá, 59; Níl, 33.

Tá.

Níl.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Smith; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Bennett.

Question declared carried.

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