I move the Second Reading of this Bill, which is necessary for the purpose of making better provision than exists at present for regulating the hours during which shops may remain open for serving customers. The existing law relating to hours of trading is contained in the Shops Act, 1912, and its enforcement is entirely in the hands of local authorities, local authorities being the council of a municipal borough, the council of an urban district or the town commissioners of any town which is not an urban district. The Act empowers these local authorities to fix, by order, the hours of closing of shops on week days, with a closing hour not later than 1 p.m. on one day of the week and to apply any closing order to the carrying on of any retail trade in any place which is not a shop. It is the duty of the borough councils and the urban district councils to appoint inspectors under the Act, but that provision does not apply to town commissioners. In rural districts the provisions of the Act relating to the weekly half-holiday and to closing orders do not apply at all. Under that Act, the local authority is empowered to make orders fixing the hours in the evening at which shops of any specified class are to be closed on week days for the serving of customers. The consent of at least two-thirds of the traders to be affected by the order must first be obtained and any such order must be submitted to the Minister for Industry and Commerce who may consider any objections offered to it and may either disallow or confirm the order. Until it is so confirmed, the order has no effect. The Third Schedule to the Act allows exemption from these provisions to shops carrying on certain classes of business. The existing law makes no provision for limiting trading in shops on Sundays. Many representations have been made from time to time that the existing legislation was ineffectual and that it was not adapted to the conditions of the present day. The need for revision is, I think, generally recognised. One of the principal defects of the existing law is the comparative failure of the local authorities to exercise their powers and fulfil their functions under the Act. That failure may be due to the elaborate procedure laid down by the Act for the making of closing orders. Even where local authorities have exercised their powers and made orders, no effective measures have been taken to enforce these orders afterwards. The existing law, as I have stated, makes no attempt to control the hours of trading in rural districts or on Sundays. Furthermore, the provisions which allow a shop with several trades or businesses to remain open during prohibited hours if any of these trades or businesses is exempted, has caused difficulty in enforcement, as almost every shop is now a mixed shop, selling more than one variety of goods. These varieties usually include at least one exempted line of goods or they can easily be made so to do, so that it is, in practice, possible for almost every shop to remain open during prohibited hours if the occupier so chooses. In these circumstances, it is practically impossible to prevent trading in non-exempted businesses during the prohibited hours. The procedure laid down in the Act to which I have already referred, is very involved and cumbersome and in connection with the making of orders necessitates the compiling of registers of shops, the giving of notice of intention to make orders, the taking of a vote of the traders affected by any proposed order, the verification of the signatures to a written application and the consideration of objections. The procedure makes it very difficult for a local authority to make an order which could not be contested on a technical point of procedure. Finally, the requirement that a majority, or two-thirds, as the case may be, of the traders affected by a proposed order, must approve of the order, has been found, in practice, to be an effective barrier to the making of orders at all.
The present Bill proposes to amend the law in relation to all these matters. We are proposing to extend the definition of "shop" contained in the 1912 Act so as to include any wholesale shop where goods are kept for sale wholesale to customers resorting to the premises and also any warehouse occupied for the purpose of his trade by any person carrying on a retail trade or business or by any wholesale dealer or merchant. The definition of "retail trade or business" has been enlarged to include the business of dyer or cleaner, the business of lending for reward books or periodicals and the business of pawnbroker.
It is intended that the enforcement of the new Act will be in the hands of the Gárda Síochána, and inspectors of the Gárda are given power to authorise members of the Gárda to enter shops and to make such investigations as may be necessary to enable them to carry out their duties. The provisions of the Act will not apply to fairs, bazaars or sales of work organised for charitable or other purposes from which no private gain is derived, or to a library at which the business of lending books is not carried on for gain, or operate to prevent the opening of a shop for such time as is necessary to serve a customer with certain classes of goods required by any naval, military or air force authority of the State, or any ship or aircraft on arrival at, or immediately before her departure from, a port or aerodrome.
Part II deals with the weekly half-holiday. In consequence of the prevalence of mixed trading to which I have referred, the making of weekly half-holiday orders has been abandoned, and the proprietor of every shop which does not deal solely in exempted trades is required to specify in a notice to be kept affixed in a prominent place in the shop the weekday in every week on which he proposes to close his shop at 1 p.m., and the shop must be closed on the day so specified. The day specified in the notice may be changed, but not more than once in any period of three months. A copy of the notice, and of any new notice changing the day of the weekly half-holiday, must be sent to the nearest Gárda Síochána station before the commencement of the first week to which the notice relates. Shops will not be required to close on the half-holiday immediately preceding or succeeding a public holiday, if the shop is closed for the whole day on the public holiday. In respect of places frequented as holiday resorts, the Minister for Industry and Commerce may by order, suspend the operation of that Part of the Act for a specified period and for specified classes of shops.
Part III deals with the general question of hours of trading on weekdays. It empowers the Minister, except in relation to certain classes of businesses which are set out in the Third Schedule, to make orders specifying the hours during which defined shops in defined areas may remain open. The existing closing orders made under the 1912 Act by a local authority will continue in force until and unless superseded by an hours of trading order made under this Bill, or until revoked by an order made under this Bill. Before making or amending an hours of trading order, the Minister is required to publish the proposed order and to invite interested parties to make representations to him concerning the terms of the proposed order. The Minister may, by order, suspend entirely or modify for a stated period the operation of an hours of trading order, or of an existing closing order. That provision is designed to allow a temporary suspension of orders for any special period such as the period immediately preceding the Christmas holiday.
Part IV deals with Sunday trading and provides that only shops in which the sole business is an exempted business, or in which all the businesses are exempted businesses of the classes mentioned in the Fourth Schedule, may open on Sundays for the serving of customers. Particular areas may be exempted from these provisions by order. It is proposed that the provisions relating to the closing of shops on the day of the weekly half-holiday and the hours of trading on week days, and also the provisions relating to trading on Sundays will not apply to a shop, if the only business of the shop is an exempted business, or if all the businesses are exempted businesses. The businesses which are regarded as exempted are mentioned in the Second, Third and Fourth Schedules, but power is taken to the Minister in the Bill to vary by order, the types of businesses brought within the Schedules. In contrast to the provisions of the existing law, the exemptions in the present Bill will not operate if a shop, in addition to carrying on an exempted business, carries on any non-exempted business. It has been provided, however, that nothing in the Bill will interfere with the transaction at any time of any of the following four excepted businesses, the first three of which are regarded as essential services and the fourth governed by other legislation: post office business, the business of selling medicine and medical and surgical appliances when carried on by a chemist, the business of selling meals for consumption on the premises and —which is governed by other legislation—the business of selling by retail intoxicating liquors. The provisions of the Bill apply to any place at which a retail trade or business is carried on, as if that place were a shop and as if the person carrying on the business in such place were the proprietor of a shop.
The only other matter is to draw the attention of the Dáil to the fact that the provisions of the Shops Act, 1912, in so far as it is not proposed to repeal them by the Shop Assistants (Conditions of Employment) Bill, will be repealed by the present Bill. I think I have covered the main features of the Bill. It has, of course, to be considered in relation to the Shop Assistants Bill at present before the Dáil. As I explained on the Second Reading of that Bill, it was originally intended to have one measure embodying the provisions of both Bills, but, for various reasons, it was subsequently decided to divide the proposals into two separate measures. It is, I think, desirable that they should be considered simultaneously by the Dáil. Apart altogether, however, from the need for regulating conditions of employment in shops, I think that legislation to replace the existing antiquated and ineffective law relating to hours of trading is required, and this Bill is designed for that purpose. It is, of course, mainly an enabling measure, enabling the central authority to act by order in the matter of regulating shop hours. It is not possible at this stage to indicate how the powers of the Bill will be used at any time, in any place or in relation to any trade, but the provision of the powers in the Bill will enable many existing grievances in relation to hours of trading in shops to be remedied, and I recommend the Bill to the Dáil.