Yesterday I put down a question in connection with the import of 6,000 rubber-proofed garments from outside whilst at the same time you had in the Glanmire Waterproof factory 57 employees working two days in the week. I have had a rather personal interest in those waterproof factories for a number of years, because when the Party opposite were in office before, this factory was nearly being closed down, before we got them out. The total employment in Glanmire factory in 1932 was something like 15 hands; the employment to-day between Glanmire and Cork alone is close on 700. If we are going to have a repetition of the old game, if we are going to have the import of foreign stuff to be paid for, I presume, by our cattle at £2 a head less than we get anywhere else—
Committee on Finance. - Adjournment Debate—Import of Rubber-Proofed Garments.
Would Deputy Corry please listen to the Chair. That certainly does not arise on this question and should not be introduced. It is extraneous and purely vexatious.
It is mischievous.
It is sabotage.
The point I am making is that the import of rubber-proof garments whilst at the same time we have factories enough to make every rubber-proof garment required by the people and still hands enough trained to do the work——
When were they imported?
Did not Guiney bring them in?
Despite that, we have these imports of garments from abroad.
When were they imported?
If these lawyers have only one way of doing their work they will turn this into a court. They ought to conduct themselves.
You are doing it very well.
Now, "Mac's Smile". When we have to face that position of affairs, where we are going to see our boys and girls unemployed, having been deprived of employment, whilst we have the articles they should be working on brought in from across the water, it is about time we called a halt. I admit that the import of 6,000 is not going to make any difference, as the Parliamentary Secretary told me.
You admit that.
But I cannot agree for one moment with a position of affairs in which one single article should be imported, where Irishmen could be kept usefully employed making it. There is no justification for it. I, for one, whilst I represent my constituency in this House, am not going to allow one single individual to be put out of employment, whilst I can prevent it.
This is a general dissertation on Irish industry. I want the Deputy to come down to the subject matter of this question.
I am on the subject matter of the question.
The Chair does not think so.
The subject matter of this question is the import of 6,000 rubber-proof garments from abroad and the disemployment of 57 workers in Glanmire.
I want the Deputy to deal with that, and that only.
The Deputy is dealing with it. The Deputy is putting the case that, in his opinion the Department of Industry and Commerce should not give any quota for articles of that description, or of any other industrial description, where there are still workers in factories here to make them. We hear a lot of talk about emigration, and the Government has set up a special commission to find out why people are emigrating. There is one very definite cause of emigration. It is that, having trained the workers, we put them out of their skilled employment by the import of foreign stuff and oblige them to go across and earn their livelihood abroad.
That has been happening for ten years, under the 1938 Agreement.
We are trying to settle it now.
A Leas-Cheann Comhairle, I am making a case to the Parliamentary Secretary and if this gentleman has no practice at the Bar, he should not be trying to interrupt me
The Deputy is travelling from the point. I have already warned him. He will have to deal with the subject matter of Question No. 10 on yesterday's Order Paper. I will not allow a continuation of a general dissertation on Ireland's industrial development. I warn the Deputy definitely on that point.
I have no intention of going into industrial development. I happened to-day to ring up other firms engaged in the same work and they told me that it is practically impossible to get from Britain to-day the material for making these garments, that the attitude of Britain to-day is to keep the material in Britain and to send the finished article over here. They told me also that they have to go to other countries to get the material.
It is a pity the Deputy could not have kept this until the present negotiations were over.
It is a pity he is interrupted so much.
At the same time, we have imported finished articles and probably we will have to deport our boys and girls who are employed here. That is the case, briefly. I do not want to linger over it, but I certainly would consider it only just that the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister would take very serious notice of 57 people being unemployed whilst the material on which they should be working is brought in from abroad.
In his opening remarks, the Deputy referred to the fact that, because of a quota that had been given for the import of 6,000 rubber-proofed garments in the period January to June of this year, 57 workers were unemployed in the Glanmire factory. The quota, which was in operation from January to June of this year, was fixed by the Fianna Fáil Minister for Industry and Commerce in December, 1947.
I do not care who fixed it.
Any unemployment that has resulted from it is the result of a Fianna Fáil decision, by the Fianna Fáil Minister for Industry and Commerce. However that may be, I would like to explain the circumstances under which these quotas were fixed and the position that has resulted over a number of years in the rubber-proofed garment supply. Prewar, the import of rubber-proofed garments was regulated by quota and it was also protected by an import duty of 60 per cent. ad valorem. During the war years, this quota was suspended, because of the difficulty in securing supplies of rubber-proofed garments until 1946 when representations were made by the manufacturers that unrestricted supplies had seriously interfered with employment. At that time it was believed that the home supply could be met from home manufacture. Subsequently traders made representations to the Department that they could not get children's pants and bibs and they asked that imports would be allowed. After some discussion with the traders a quota was fixed of 2,000 garments.
Further representations were made subsequently that these bibs and pants were not available and that the traders were finding great difficulty—in fact, finding it impossible—to meet the demands of their customers and that supplies could not be secured from the home manufacturers. Eventually in July of last year the matter was further considered and a quota of 6,000 garments was fixed for the period January, 1948, to July, 1948. In March of this year the Irish Waterproof, Raincoat and Leather Garment Manufacturers' Association, which represents the majority of the manufacturers— though I understand that the Glanmire firm are not members of that association—wrote to the Department and said that the current quota should not further be increased. The phrase used was that there "be no increase in the new period in July, 1948." There was no suggestion in that letter, or by means of any other representations, that the existing quota was causing any unemployment or causing any dislocation in the situation which the home manufacturers had to meet. If unemployment has resulted in the Glanmire factory it is as a result of the quota fixed during the period January, 1948, to July, 1948. Since the publication of the fact that a new quota of the same number has been fixed for the period July, 1948, to December, 1948, the Glanmire factory have made representations to the Department that unemployment has resulted. Until this notification was received no other representations of any kind had been made and the Department was not aware that there was any unemployment.
The quota which has been fixed for July to December of this year has already been made and it cannot be altered. At the end of that period, however, if there is still unemployment and if the situation warrants a change, the matter will then be considered.
These two quotas were both fixed after representations over a considerable period that there was a great difficulty in getting these garments. If the situation which has been outlined by the Deputy and which, I gather, from the representations made by the company concerned, has resulted in unemployment, it can be reviewed too under circumstances which were recently brought to the notice of the Department. I should say that those representations have only been made by a single firm. No other complaints have been received and the association to which I have referred represents the majority of these manufacturers. If the position continues as it is at the moment this matter will be further reviewed. But until the recent communication was received there was no evidence—in fact, the evidence was entirely to the contrary—that home-manufactured articles were not sufficient to meet the home demand.
Has the Department received any complaint as to the impossibility of getting materials?
That is a very wide question. As the Deputy is probably aware, the purpose of the negotiations at present in London is to try to get further supplies of raw materials for our different manufacturing concerns. In so far as the question applies to the manufacture of rubber garments we have had no recent complaints. In fact the first complaint, and the only one, is from the Glanmire factory. It may be that there are difficulties. If so, the matter will be investigated.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.15 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 22nd June, 1948.