Vol. 63 No. 11
I move:—
That it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas of such expenses as are necessary to give effect to any Act of the present Session to make further and better provision in regard to the duration of the Slaughter of Cattle and Sheep Acts, 1934 and 1935, and in particular to empower the Executive Council to terminate certain portions of those Acts, and also to amend the said Acts in certain respects.
There are one or two points which I desire to put to the Minister in the form of questions and perhaps it would be more convenient if I asked them on the Money Resolution. I should like if the Minister would make a statement regarding arrears of levies. I understand that there are considerable arrears and that in consequence many of those engaged in the butchering business find themselves in very grave difficulties. As a matter of fact, I am informed that a number of them have had to go out of business altogether. It is alleged, so far as a number of those who are in arrear are concerned, that it is due to no fault of their own. It has been stated to me that the arrears arose in the first instance because of some difficulties in the Minister's own Department. At the beginning, it is stated, there were delays in sending on the necessary documents and arrangements were not made for the collection of these levies periodically, with the result that the amounts accumulated and that, when the demands eventually came from the Department, many of those in the business were unable to meet them. I have been informed that those who are in arrear are quite satisfied to clear off the arrears provided that they get a reasonable chance of doing so, and provided that the Minister and his Department are prepared to give them time and not demand that the full amount should be paid down in a lump sum. I think the Minister will admit that a large percentage of those engaged in the business throughout the country in towns and villages are merely making a rather poor living out of the business. They are not making very much profit.
Another point arises in connection with the question of registration. Does the Minister propose to do anything to clarify or regularise the position as regards registration and licensing? It has been suggested to me that the Minister has issued licences to people who were never properly in the trade at all and that they are in unfair competition with those who have to make their living from the business. I raise this point on the Money Resolution, rather than on the amending Bill itself because the amending Bill is one of those Bills that it is almost impossible to read. It is very hard for the ordinary Deputy to understand it, even when he has the principal Act and the amending Act of 1935 before him. I am doubtful if anybody could make very much sense out of the Green Paper we have before us at the moment. I would be obliged if the Minister would on this Resolution reply to the points I have made and give us as full information as he possibly can. It would assist the collection of the outstanding money if the Minister would state exactly what the position is and whether these people are to be given a fair chance of clearing off the arrears which accumulated, not through their own fault, but through some delay on the part of the Department in the early stages.
I support the plea made by Deputy Morrissey that any persons who are heavily in arrear in the payment of levies should be given a reasonably fair chance of meeting their obligations in that respect by spreading the payment over the longest possible period. I hope the Minister will agree to meet exceptional cases of that kind in that way. I am not now suggesting that any unfair method has been adopted in the collection of arrears because I am aware of a number of cases where people who fell into arrear were given a reasonable chance to clear off the arrears. The wording of the Money Resolution is somewhat different from that of most Resolutions of a similar kind I have read here. Power is sought in this Resolution to terminate certain portions of the Acts. In that way, I presume, it is proposed to give power to the Executive Council to make drastic alterations in the original Act without its being necessary to come back to this House. I presume the Minister is prepared to admit that the fixed prices section in the original Act was a total failure and that although he employed, at fairly large salaries, 150 inspectors for the purpose of enforcing the fixed prices section, all that expenditure appears to have gone for nothing, so far as effectively enforcing the fixed prices for producers was concerned. Am I to assume that the Minister has failed—miserably failed, in my opinion —to enforce the fixed prices and to give to producers the benefits intended to be conferred upon them under the terms of the original Act?
I should like to know from the Minister also what is to be the future position of the 150 inspectors appointed to administer the original Act. Is it proposed to find them suitable alternative employment in another section of his Department or what action does he propose to take as a result of the repeal of certain vital clauses of the original Act as provided for in the Bill before us? I understood that Deputy Morrissey also objects, as I certainly do, to any licences or any fresh facilities being given to what I call hawkers, to the disadvantage of people who have been always legitimately engaged in the butchering business. The rural parts of this country at the present time appear to be infested with a number of hawkers, who are doing serious damage to people who have been all their lives engaged in carrying on this business in a business like way. I have every sympathy and consideration for a trader, no matter what business he may be engaged in, who puts his capital into the business, who puts up proper buildings, who employs people at reasonable rates of wages and who pays rates to the local authority. We have, through inactivity on the part of the Government, and of their predecessors too, in connection with measures of this kind, licences given to people such as hawkers, who employ nobody, who do not pay any rates and who, as far as I can see, confer no advantage on anybody. They are put in the position of being able to carry on their business without having to erect business premises or pay rates. They go round the country with hawkers' vans and undersell people who are engaged in carrying on business in a businesslike way. I hope that no facilities will be given to such people under this amending Bill, as they appear to have been given under the original Act.
I want to hear a little bit more than we have so far heard in regard to the future administration of the cheap beef scheme. The Minister passed over that in a very brief way on Second Reading by referring us to the statement made by the Minister for Finance in his Budget statement. Nobody knows, I do not at any rate, what the Minister meant in connection with the saving involved in the repeal of the original Act and the future method of giving cheap beef to certain sections of the community. Who is to administer the cheap beef section of the Government scheme in future if it is not to be administered by the Department of Agriculture in co-operation with the local authorities and other people who administered it in the past? To what type of people is it intended to give cheap beef in future? Is it intended to allow the local authorities and the labour exchanges to carry on without any dictation or interference from the Department of Agriculture in future? I should like a little further enlightenment than was given to us by the Minister for Finance in the Budget statement or by the Minister for Agriculture on the Second Reading of the Bill.
I might commence by answering Deputy Davin to the effect that this Bill gives the Executive Council authority to make certain orders which will in effect put certain parts of the principal Act out of operation. It must be remembered that the principal Act expires on 31st December next, in any case. This Bill asks the Dáil for authority to have certain parts of the Act discontinued before the 31st December, and to leave the Executive Council the choice of the date. It is rather difficult to say the exact date on which we want different parts of the Bill discontinued. We have to give a certain amount of notice to the victuallers on the free beef scheme and, also, to other people concerned and we are to have a new cheap beef scheme ready to take its place so that there will be no lapse of time. On the whole it was considered more convenient that the Executive Council should have power to make these orders. It is not taking much from the Dáil to enable the Executive Council to determine the dates on which different parts of the Bill should expire.
I do not agree, altogether, with Deputy Morrissey that this is a very difficult Bill. I do agree that, in regard to Bills that have a lot of reference back to previous Acts, it is rather too much that Deputies should be asked to go through six or seven Acts in order to study a Bill under discussion in relation to what I might call minor matters. In this case the references are very simple, and refer to the particular dates when parts of the Acts will be discontinued. They refer back simply to the provisions in regard to free beef and fixed prices. We have not, I believe, refused any victualler a reasonable settlement where he has written up to the Department saying he owed a certain amount of levies and was prepared to pay them over a period, if we permitted him to do so. In all cases where the period was a reasonable one, and where the victualler did his best, an agreement was made. As long as that is carried out no further trouble arises between the victualler and the Department.
I do not know whether Deputies realise that under the principal Act the Minister for Agriculture had no power to refuse registration to anybody. Any person could come along, whether farmer or shopkeeper, so long as he had a fixed shop. The power was there to refuse registration to a moving shop, such as the van referred to, and we did refuse in a few cases. If such people are carrying on business they are carrying it on without registration and therefore illegally. As long as a person had a fixed shop, or office, I had no power to refuse registration. The local authority, on the other hand, had power to refuse to license any victualler unless carrying on business in a proper premises. It is the local authority that should really be appealed to in such cases as Deputy Morrissey and Deputy Davin have in mind.
Deputy Morrissey also alluded to what is really a regulation of the trade, where we should have a register of all butchers to see that only the proper people could come in. That is a matter for further legislation. If this Amendment Bill goes through, my Department will have nothing further to do with the registration of victuallers at all. The local authorities can regulate the sale with regard to public health. If there is to be a trade-mark, and if only people properly trained should go into the business, it would require legislation. An entirely new Act would be required to deal with matters such as that. Deputy Davin asked if I was satisfied with the measures we are taking to enforce prices. I said in the Dáil, and outside the Dáil, on many occasions, that I was not. With the measure we had we were doing our best, but I was not satisfied with the result.
I had great hope, when the Act was going through this House, that the farmers would co-operate to the best of their ability in order to have a fixed price carried out. But the farmers, for one reason or another, did not co-operate as much as they should have done and the fixed price was not enforced. We have not attempted to put it into operation for over a year. After a meeting of the Consultative Council, where the matter was fully discussed, it was considered that prices were on the upgrade, and likely to improve without any measure of this kind, and the fixed prices were dropped, and not put into operation. That is one of the provisions of the principal Act to be repealed.
With regard to inspectors, I would like Deputy Davin to realise that these men were recruited purely on a temporary basis. They were not misled about the conditions of employment, and it was made quite clear to them that they were only getting temporary engagements. A number of them will not be required when this legislation goes through. They were all concerned practically with the administration of the free beef or cheap beef scheme, and for the collection of levies. If these are dropped we would only require a half a dozen or so inspectors for the operation of the other parts of the Bill, and for the operation of the cattle scheme for the Waterford factory, where we are supplying cattle for canned beef and meat extracts. We will not require, in the future, half of the 120 inspectors and the remainder will have to go and, I suppose, the principle holds good, the last men in the first out. There will be a certain number of these inspectors required for some time for other schemes, such as the butter scheme, which again is a temporary measure. A certain number also will be required as lay inspectors in the bacon factories for grading bacon. These factories will only take a small number.
Deputy Davin asked me for more precise information about the free beef or cheap beef scheme which is to replace the present one. I am sorry I cannot give exact particulars because the matter is still the subject of interdepartmental discussion. But my anxiety, and other Ministers agree with me, is to have a scheme that can be administered much more cheaply. The present scheme is costing a huge amount for administration. We think it would be much better if a lot of that money could be spared and could go to the distribution of beef rather than to the administrative cost. Following that line, it is likely to take somewhat the shape of the distribution of free milk. In that case, the administration would be by the Department of Local Government and the local authorities. Naturally, the class we would first think of in the distribution of this beef would be those in receipt of home assistance. In the case of those in receipt of unemployment assistance, those who have dependents should, at least, be considered. I am afraid that I cannot go any further at the moment than that. I can, however, assure Deputy Davin that, before dropping our present cheap beef scheme, we shall have the other one ready to take its place, so that there will be no interval between the two schemes.
Will the House be given an opportunity of discussing the new scheme on a Supplementary Estimate?
Yes, but it is quite possible that the House will be adjourned before the new scheme comes into operation. The money will, however, have to be voted when the House comes back.
Will the Minister consider the advisability of continuing the present scheme until the House meets again and has an opportunity of discussing the new scheme?
I think the Deputy will agree that if we can get a scheme under which we shall spend as much as under the present scheme on the meat and under which we can cut down the cost of administration, we should not make any great delay in putting it into operation.
I take it that the Minister will undertake; to look into the circumstances of people who arc heavily in arrear with regard to levies before any drastic action is taken?
Yes.
It would be almost impossible for many of them to pay off the arrears in a short time. I take it the Minister is prepared to give full consideration to the matter?
Yes. We shall give con sideration to each case.
