Turf is defined as including peat. For the purposes of this Bill, is there any indication as to what peat is, or what percentage of water it may contain, for instance?
Committee on Finance. - Turf (Use and Development) Bill, 1935—Committee Stage.
Question proposed: "That Section 1 stand part of the Bill."
No.
So that if it contains 40 per cent. It still satisfies the provisions of the Bill?
There is a definition of turf there.
I am speaking now of peat.
Peat includes turf.
No, turf includes peat.
Things that are equal to the same thing are equal to one another.
Excuse me, not at all.
The Deputy is concerned as to the quality of the turf that will be sold under the Bill. The obligation to ensure that the quality will be adequate rests upon the Turf Development Board, and, in fact, the provisions of the Bill which require that turf, when it must be purchased compulsorily, is purchased from an approved source, are designed to ensure that peat of good quality will be available to the people who must use it.
This definition section deals with inspectors appointed by the Minister, and, later on in the Bill, we have officers authorised by the Board and any member of the Gárda Síochána. I want to know if it is the intention that we should have three different sets of inspectors. That is what it looks like. You may have an inspection carried out to-day by an inspector appointed by the Minister, by an officer appointed by the Board to-morrow, and by any member of the Gárda Síochána the following day. I should like the Minister to tell us why it is necessary to have not only three inspectors but three inspectors responsible and appointed by three different bodies or departments, so to speak.
The Deputy may take it that the Department of Industry and Commerce will function, in the main, through the Turf Development Board, and, in so far as it is practical to do it, will arrange to have its work done by the officers of the Board.
My point is that in this Bill we are to have inspections by an inspector appointed by the Minister, an officer appointed by the Turf Board, or any member of the Gárda Síochána. These inspectors may call at any time and make all investigations—inspect books, records, invoices, and so on. Are we to be in the position that we may have an inspector appointed by the Minister to-day, an officer appointed by the Board to-morrow, and a member of the Gárda Síochána the following day? Is it necessary that there should be three sets of officers appointed by three different Departments?
If the Deputy will refer to the particular provisions of the Bill he is concerned about, I am sure he will find that the situation he contemplates is purely imaginary.
We will deal with that when we come to the sections on which it arises. With regard to the point raised by Deputy O'Sullivan as to the quality of the turf, I should like to know from the Minister, if this is the appropriate place to raise it, what arrangements will be made by the Board to have adequate supervision? I want to say, here and now, that, from what I have heard, the Board certainly did a good deal to get after the abuses which arose during the first and second year, but the Minister knows as well as I do that there were abuses, and fairly widespread abuses. When the purchase of turf is made compulsory I am afraid there will be a further tendency to abuse, and I am not satisfied that adequate arrangements are made in the Bill or sufficient machinery provided to ensure that we are going to get turf of the quality set out in the Bill. The Minister knows it will be almost impossible to have the supervision over the country that it would be necessary to have, not only as regards quality, but as regards weight. I do not know definitely what has been done up to the present, except in so far as we can learn from what has been happening, and I should like the Minister to say—if he is prepared to say it now or on a later section— what machinery is going to be set up to safeguard the consumer in the matter of quality and weight.
The Deputy may be satisfied that the Turf Development Board will exercise such supervision over the activities of the co-operative societies, as is necessary to ensure that the turf sold by them will be of good quality. I am rather surprised that the Deputy should raise the point, having regard to the fact that the amendments to the Bill submitted by his Party are all designed to prevent that supervision being exercised.
Not at all.
I thought the Minister would slip into that very obvious mistake.
I am not yet aware that it is a mistake.
I should think not. It was so obvious that the Minister could not avoid it.
The amendments have the very opposite effect to what the Minister suggests.
Deputy O'Sullivan was getting nervous while Deputy Morrissey was speaking.
The Minister will hear all about the amendment and the reasons for it when we come to it. We are surely not expected to be satisfied with the bald statement of the Minister that the turf board will take all the necessary precautions? I want to know how they are going to take precautions. I want to know what will be the machinery. I want to know how many inspectors will be required to cover the bog area in this country, so as to ensure that the quality that we are supposed to get will be supplied. The Minister has not given us an idea whatever about these things. He comes in here with the Bill and makes, as I say, a sort of bald statement and expects the House to accept the Bill without substantiating his statement in any way. The Minister must know from his own experience, and we all know, that the Department has had terrible difficulty in this matter, and that up to the present it has not been found possible to take adequate precautions to ensure that good-quality turf was supplied. The Minister himself knows that, and I only want to ensure that the machinery that will be set up under this Bill will be adequate to prevent abuses. I want to know from the Minister what precautions have been taken and where there is anything in the Bill to tell us what machinery will be set up in that regard.
It is in Section 2.
Does the Minister consider that an answer to the question?
Certainly. Section 2 deals with the approved sources. That is the section where we say that the turf sold must be turf sold by the Board—and I think the Deputy can rely on the fact that the turf sold by the Board will be turf of good quality; by a co-operative society authorised or approved by the Board to supply turf for the purposes of the provisions of this Act—and on the Board we place the obligation that they will not approve or authorise any society that is selling turf that is not up to the standard that the Board requires; and, thirdly, by a concern that is approved of by the Minister. The only proposal to increase the number of sources and to bring in a source over which there could be no supervision is contained in the amendment moved by Deputy O'Sullivan.
The Minister says that the Board will not approve a society that is not right or that is not selling turf up to the standard. Very well. Let us say that a society is formed and that it applies to the Board for authorisation and for a certificate, or whatever is necessary, that they are an approved source of supply. That is an easy step. That is the first step, but what steps are to be taken to ensure that, having been authorised by the Board, there will not be abuses?
The Board will take all necessary steps.
Will the Minister give us then some indication—since he would not give it to us on the Money Resolution—of the number of inspectors to be appointed by the Turf Board to ensure that we get the proper quality of turf? Has the Minister the foggiest idea?
No.
He certainly has not the boggiest idea. Where will the inspection take place?
The inspection will take place at various stages. There will be turf cut by societies and stored for sale during the winter season. It will be stored in compounds or sheds erected by and approved by the Turf Board. It will be subject all the time to the board's supervision. It will be sold under the board's supervision, and if there is any complaint the turf will be sent back to the society at the society's expense, as in the past. Adequate safeguards are provided. Of course, I know that this amendment is only put forward as a red herring.
It was put forward to me by a scientific supporter of the Government.
It is put forward by the Party opposite in order to enlarge the sources of supply so that they could not be supervised. I am trying to get the Party opposite on to some basis of consistency.
Of course, that is the Minister's usual way. When the Minister has no information, or is completely ignorant of any matter, he gets excited and starts off in the usual way. The Minister is talking as if there had been no abuses up to this.
They were adequately dealt with.
They were not. I said already that the board had taken steps to deal with abuses, and I admit it. I admitted that they had taken fairly drastic steps to deal with abuses, but the extent to which they were able to check abuses is another matter. The Minister talks about the sources of supply and about supervision of the sources. Well, a co-operative society under this scheme might get as many as 50 orders, say, within ten days, from 50 different merchants in 50 different parts of the country. Is an inspector to be kept there all the time to see that the turf is all right and that it is weighed into the sacks, and not merely filled into them by guesswork and put into the railway or canal barge? Has the Minister any idea? He does not know. I am anxious to know this, particularly in view of the fact that there are three sets of inspectors. I want to know how many inspectors will be appointed by the board to see that this is carried out.
As many as are necessary.
Can the Minister say whether there will be 10, 20, 50, 100 or 500 inspectors?
The numbers will vary according as development occurs and new societies are registered.
How often are the inspectors to visit?
As often as may be necessary.
Well, that is the answer of a man who is completely ignorant of what he is asking this House to pass.
I suppose I must talk to the Minister in bog language. Does the Minister know anything about bogs? Did he ever work on a bog? Did he ever hear of a "cut" of turf? Well, they describe a turf-bank in the country as a "cut" of turf. Does the Minister not know that in that "cut" there would be four or five qualities of turf? How will the Board distinguish between the different qualities?
They have devised a very practical method of doing so.
Are they not in existence for the past few years, and what has been happening? I could give the Minister names of certain people in Deputy O'Sullivan's constituency who sent some waggon-loads of turf to Kilkenny, and when the turf reached there it was condemned and they were ordered to take it back. After bringing it that long distance they had to bring it back again, and that was a great hardship on these people. How is the Minister going to get over that?
That is an answer to Deputy Morrissey.
It is not. Of course, the Minister is so hopelessly ignorant of the whole problem that he is just floundering about and does not realise the nature of the difficulties with which the Turf Board may have to contend. Inspection there must be if you are going to have certified turf sold, but there is no necessity to make that inspection a hardship which will crush the people whom this Bill is supposed to help. Take the persons to whom Deputy O'Leary has just referred. They ship turf to Kilkenny, and when the turf gets to Kilkenny it is there inspected, is condemned, and has to be shipped back to them. The result is that there is enormous cost placed on them, and a transaction out of which they hoped to make a modest profit is turned into a horrible liablility. If provision had been made for inspection before it was shipped, this could not have happened. The turf would have been found to be of the wrong quality and they might have lost a little, but they would not have been involved in such a staggering loss and such a ferocious Bill as this. I want to know from the Minister what scheme of inspection he is going to set on foot to ensure that the quality of turf sold shall correspond to the requirements of the Turf Board. It seems to me absolutely ludicrous that this House should be asked to give a blank cheque to a man who himself admits that he has never seen a bog except when he went down in a trilby hat to preside at a turf-cutting competition in Kildare and eat a lunch cooked on a coal range there. Goodness knows, it would make anybody sick to hear this kind of thing.
I suggest, Sir, with all respect, that it is time to get on to the Bill.
The Bill is here, and what provision is the Minister going to make with regard to inspection? I want to know from the Minister what burdens will be placed on the backs of the people in respect of the salaries of inspectors. I want to save the people from the consequences of the Minister's own incompetence and ineptitude. It must be remembered that we had the Cattle and Sheep Bill and that a horde of inspectors was created as a result of it, who are now going around the country at £2 10s. 0d. a week sucking their fingers and with nothing to do. We have not heard what is to be done with them. The Minister asks leave to create another host of inspectors. We do not know what their functions are, what the nature of their work is going to be, where they are going to be employed, when, how or how many, and we are asked to give the Minister authority to proceed. Such conduct reduces the proceedings here to a farce.
Hear, hear!
That would not matter if it did nothing but show forth the Minister for Industry and Commerce in his ineptitude and incompetence in dealing with matters of this kind; but the worst part is that ineptitude and incompetence are going to react on the various sections of the community. Deputy Victory emphasised that those resident in the bog areas, the people seeking a livelihood out of cutting turf, are bearing a more crushing burden than the people in any other area in the country.
I should like to draw the Deputy's attention to the fact that the matter before the House is the definition section.
Quite so, and these are the victims——
There is nothing in the definitions relating to victims.
The Minister is not able to tell us how the inspections are to be carried out.
The question of inspection scarcely arises.
Would it not arise on the definition relating to the Turf Development Board? That is the very point we are on. I suggest that this inspection system can be operated to assist the people who are producing turf, or it can be operated in such a way as was described by Deputy O'Leary—it can be a horrible blister on the people who are misled into producing turf. It is up to the Minister to reassure us that whatever system he devises in order to ensure that the turf will be the kind of turf that the Turf Development Board requires, it will not be administered in such a way as gravely to inconvenience the people producing the turf. He has failed to do that, because he has not the relevant information.
Turf-cutters are aware that there are various grades of turf, varying qualities.
What is the Deputy speaking about now?
I should like to know if the Minister has yet reached the grading of turf? If a man has to get turf, he has to order turf or he has to buy it with coal. What sort of turf is he going to get? Has it been graded yet?
I will tell the Deputy that on Section 2.
We will have a lot more to talk about on Section 2 than that particular matter.
Can the Minister not answer that now?
It would be out of order.
Let me remind the House again that we are dealing with the definition section.
That is a very useful answer for the Minister to have.
If an inspector goes down to inspect turf, he may approve of some turf and condemn some of the ricks close by. When the turf is going to be put into bags will there be an inspector there to see that only the approved turf is selected?
The board will in due course find out by experience what societies they have to watch, and what societies they can trust. The amount of inspection in the case of any bog will depend on the amount of confidence the board has in the societies and the officers of the societies.
It is well to remember that you will not get the same class of turf in every bog or the same class of turf even in the one bank.
Would it be legitimate to paraphrase what the Minister has stated in this way: that where a turf society has a chairman who is chairman of the local Fianna Fáil club, a secretary who is secretary of the Fianna Fáil club and a treasurer who is treasurer of the Fianna Fáil club, there no inspection will be necessary; but where the president of the society is the president of the local Fine Gael cumann, the secretary is the secretary of the local Fine Gael cumann, and the treasurer is the treasurer of the local Fine Gael cumann——
I thought you were opposed to turf?
——there 15 inspectors will dwell; the standard of turf there will be such that it will bring a blush of pride to the cheek of any turf promoter in the country, and turf will be extracted from that bog which, as the Minister so aptly described it, ought to be exchangeable for its weight in gold. Is that what the Minister meant?
In what bog area is there such a thing as a Fine Gael club?
You will find them in Ballyvourney.
Section 1 agreed to.
SECTION 2.
I move amendment No. 1:
To add at the end of sub-section (1) a new paragraph as follows:—
(d) any person who had been cutting and selling turf before the 1st day of December, 1935.
I wonder has the Minister realised that a great deal of the time which he apparently thinks is being wasted on this Bill is due entirely to his own conduct, to his repeated refusals to give the slightest information about this Bill from the administrative point of view? I do not profess that the actual words in the amendment I propose cover fully my purpose. It is the general principle I am interested in. I raised the point on the Second Reading as to the damage this Bill will do to the ordinary turf-cutter and I queried the purpose behind it. I am sorry Deputy Victory is not here, because I am sure he would give me his support on this amendment. He referred to turf-cutting as a side-line. It is a side-line for many individuals and it ought to be allowed to remain so. What may be a profitable and necessary side-line for many people ought not to be interfered with and destroyed, in so far as it is a productive business, by an Act of the Oireachtas.
The Minister said that the question I raised on the definition of turf was inconsistent with the amendment I am now moving. That shows a typical lack of reasoning capacity on the part of the Minister. Will the Minister not recognise from what I said on the Second Reading and from the amendment we are now discussing, that the purpose is to secure that where a person in a town voluntarily buys turf from an individual who cuts it, what he buys will be counted, so to speak, as satisfying the obligations of this Bill? Will the Minister not recognise that where there is a voluntary purchase of turf, just as in an ordinary commercial transaction and just as has happened in this country for centuries, long before the Minister began to interfere with the cutting of turf, the individual who buys the turf will see that he is getting value for his money? That has no connection with the other point that was raised, namely, that where people have turf forced upon them there should be some effort to see that the quality of that turf will be up to the approved standard. There we have two distinct views. The Minister's completely inaccurate habit of assuming things leads him into error on this occasion; he assumes there is a connection which is really entirely absent.
This amendment has to do with a practice in existence for generations in this country, a practice under which small farmers cutting turf bring it into the country towns and sell it to individuals. My contention, and nothing that the Minister has said leads me to alter my view in this matter, is that that particular form of business will be gravely interfered with by this Bill. I raised the point on the Second Reading, and the Minister said that the man to whom I referred was not going to be affected to any extent by the provisions of this Bill. But then he went on to say that there is, of course, nothing in the Bill which prevents an individual from carrying on in future as he did in the past. He added that it was true that to some extent the market that individual had been supplying might be reduced by the operation of this measure, but the extent would be negligible. Again we are in difficulties, because we have no information from the Minister. First he says there will be no interference with that particular individual; his trade will not be interfered with. In the second sentence he confesses that the market will be interfered with, but he professes to believe that it will be only to a negligible extent. On what does he base that? Does he base it on the view that this Bill is not going to be operated seriously anywhere? Remember, that the districts I have in view are the ordinary turf-cutting districts which can be found in most parts of my native County Kerry. There you have turf-cutting districts, districts in which turf is consumed. I have been unable to find from the Minister—and I challenge any Deputy who has listened to the Minister or read his pronouncements on this matter—if he can make up his mind whether a typical place for the enforcement of this Bill is the City of Dublin or the County of Kerry. I listened to some of the Minister's interruptions, and they were many, in the course of these debates, and I do not think it is possible to find out which he regards as a typical turf area for the purposes of this measure. I must assume that when he said deliberately, in cold blood, that the place he primarily intends to operate the Bill is in the turf-consuming areas, he means an ordinary district with a town as centre and bogs around. That is precisely the area in which it will be operated, and it will be operated, therefore, to the serious detriment of the particular type of individual to whom I refer.
Progress reported, the Committee to sit again on Tuesday next.
The Dáil adjourned at 2 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 19th May.