I am sure the Deputy will appreciate that I have not had time to go into all these matters, but I think that what I have said indicates what my view on the matter is. Perhaps I might now refer to the position with regard to the fuel in the various dumps throughout the country and particularly in the Phænix Park. That matter was raised by Deputy Lemass and it was referred to by Deputies from all sides. There was complete unanimity in recommending that I should cut the losses and get rid of the dumps. I am afraid that may have to be done, but I want to warn Deputies who talk about cutting the losses, what the losses are going to be. Remember that we have huge dumps of timber, and, as Deputy Sheehan has reminded us, that timber is not all hardwood. It is made up of all classes, sorts and sizes of timber, from brushwood to commercial timber, and, in the circumstances of the times in which it was cut and collected, it could not be otherwise. I freely admit that, but we know that rapidly as turf deteriorates and loses weight, timber loses it much more rapidly.
However, that is the situation. We have huge dumps, including a lot of coal—somewhere in the neighbourhood of 450,000 to 500,000 tons of American and South African coal. Nobody wants it at its present price and some people do not want it at any price. I have had the matter under active consideration, and it has been examined within the past week or so by an inter-departmental committee and I want to tell the House that, if we decide to dispose of the fuel in the dumps and offer it at a price sufficiently low to attract purchasers, we will lose approximately £5,000,000. I have to make up my mind whether it is better to lose it that way and dispose of it, or to leave it there to go into dust and to become useless, to become as Deputy Larkin said, a heap of rubbish which will cost money to get taken away and dumped into the bay. That is the position and Deputies will realise that it is a matter not lightly to be determined and one in which one cannot take an immediate decision.
I want to warn Deputies of this also, because I know I will be accused and attacked later on, that if I reduce the price of the fuel in the dumps to such an attractive figure that people in Dublin and people throughout the country convenient to the other dumps take full advantage of it and stock up, everybody who produces a sod of turf this year, or has a clamp of turf left over from last year, will immediately attack me and say: "You encouraged us to cut turf and now you swamp the market at a price at which we could not possibly produce it." I am telling the House in time so that, if it is decided to make this fuel available at a price at which people will buy it and if people stock up, Deputies will not come in here later to denounce me because I deprived people in the turf areas of the market which they are supposed to be looking forward to.
Perhaps I should say in this connection that there has been a lot of talk about coal and a great deal of talk about the effect which the imports of coal have on the production of native fuel. The allocation of coal which my predecessor was able, after extreme pressure, to extract from the British was roughly 50 to 60 per cent. of our pre-war imports of coal, and, when I was in London recently and saw the Minister of Fuel and Power there, I deliberately refrained from asking for more coal from the British than roughly from 50 to 60 per cent. of our pre-war consumption, so as to leave for home-produced fuel a big part of the market. As a matter of fact, for a considerable time and up to the present moment, we are not taking from the British any thing like 50 per cent. of our pre-war consumption and we have even fallen as low as 25 per cent., so that there ought to be a very substantial market in this country for home-produced fuel, with imported coal selling at anything from £6 to £8 a ton. In the turf areas, where I have been asked by numerous Deputies and other interests outside, completely to exclude coal, I can see no reason why, with the quality of English coal which is available and at the price at which it is available, good turf, either machine or hand-won turf, cannot be sold in competition with it at a price economic to the producer. I am speaking as a person who has a fairly considerable knowledge of turf and I know that if I could get in Dublin or in the country, when I was living there, good quality turf at 50/-a ton I certainly would not pay £7 10s. or £8 10s. a ton for English coal that was not so good. Deputies ought to face up to that.
I was very glad that the subject of the production of turf on the bogs formerly operated by the county councils was not dealt with in a controversial manner. I have no hesitation in saying this, and I do not think it will be seriously challenged, that whether Deputy Lemass did or did not, as Minister for Industry and Commerce, take a decision not to produce hand-won turf on the bogs formerly operated by the county council, I have no doubt in my mind, in the full light of all the facts that are now available to me, that Deputy Lemass if he had been returned again as Minister, would have had to take that decision. There is no question whatever about that. That cannot be challenged. I have told the House that the position about the dumps is that if we sell the turf in them at a price sufficiently low to get anyone to purchase it, we will lose £5,000,000.
Deputy Lemass, as Minister, had been informed by Fuel Importers, Limited, that, if the turf was produced, there was nowhere to put it, that the dumps were all full and that it would have to be stacked along the sides of the country roads. Those who know something about turf and country roads and stacks of turf along country roads, have a fair idea of what would happen and what the loss would be. It would be far greater than the loss on what is in the dumps at the moment. The fact of the matter is that we would be producing something which nobody wanted and for which there was no demand and—this is the point—which would not last.
Does anybody think that I took any particular pleasure in stopping hand-won turf? Does anybody think it was any particular pleasure to me that hundreds of men were to lose their employment? Was it any particular pleasure to me, who had a fairly intimate knowledge of it, to know that families who had good incomes—I am not talking about wages now; I am talking about family incomes from the bogs—were to lose that source of income? I did not put an end to it nor, if Deputy Lemass did, would it be Deputy Lemass who was putting an end to it. It would be change of circumstances that put an end to it. Remember, those incomes that were got during the previous five, six or seven years, whether by bog owners, families working bogs, lorry owners or anybody else, were got, not because the people of this country wanted to burn turf but because the war was on and they could not get anything else to burn.
Deputies lightheartedly suggest that I should not allow coal to be burned in any part of this country outside the cities. That suggestion has been put to me in the House and outside the House by various interests and deputations. How many Deputies will go down and advocate that from a platform in any town in rural Ireland and get away with it? We have to be realistic about this. I want to say that, as far as I am concerned, while I occupy the position which I now occupy, whether it be for a long or a short time, I shall do everything in my power to develop to the full our native resources, but I am not going to ram any commodity, native or foreign, down the throats of the people of this country. That is not my function and, if we make available for our people articles, commodities, raw materials that are on a par or nearly on a par with similar articles that can be got elsewhere, and if our people refuse to use them and buy them, then we simply cannot, by legislation, dragoon them and drive these commodities down their throats.
I believe that as far as it is economically possible to develop the production of home fuel, it should be done, but if there is anybody in this House who at this late hour of the day thinks that there is a commercial future for hand-won turf in this country, he is simply living in a fool's paradise. I deliberately use the word "commercial future" because turf has always been and probably always will be used as a fuel throughout rural Ireland, particularly by the farmers and farming labourers. Before ever we had a war or before ever we had a shortage of imported fuel, when the best quality coal was being landed on the quays of Dublin at £1 and 21/- a ton, 3,500,000 tons of turf were being used by people in this country.
Let us keep a sense of proportion in relation to turf production. With the greatest drive behind the production of turf that could possibly be put behind it, we stepped up to an estimated maximum of roughly 5,000,000 tons of turf, in other words, 1,500,000 tons over and above what was produced by the ordinary people in the ordinary old-fashioned way.
There has been a lot of talk about native coal. Again let us get clear on that. We have not unlimited quantities of coal. We have coal, not much of it, unfortunately, particularly anthracite, that can compare more than favourably with the best anthracite coal imported from Wales or anywhere else. I would ask Deputies to keep this in their minds, to show that it is a question of quality: There is one coal mine in this country that, pre-war, during the war, or post-war, was never able to meet the demand for its product. I know something about that. I was in the business in a very small way many years ago. I could not get, and there were dozens like me, a lorry load of anthracite coal from that particular colliery because they were unable to supply anybody outside their regular customers.
I am talking now of long pre-war. That is due entirely to the quality of that coal. We have other good coal but not as good as that and we have a lot of what is called coal but which is 80 per cent. shale and, do not forget this, we were producing coal from a coal mine during the war and, though we were glad to have it, 80 per cent. of it—that is not a haphazard figure, but an accurate one—was duff or slack. If 90 per cent. of its output had not been taken by one of the maligned State-sponsored companies, it could not be existing at all. That is a very rough outline of the fuel position and I think Deputy Lemass could not challenge seriously any point I have made.
Deputy Lemass referred to another matter which I considered important but did not have time to examine as fully as I would like, that is, copper sulphate and sulphate of ammonia. Like him, I fully appreciate the importance of that product to us. Ceimicí Teoranta is actively examining the production of both these chemicals and the views of other Departments are being obtained. As soon as we get them, a report will be presented to me.
References were made by some Deputies to gaps in our industrial position. Proposals are being received every day and every week from persons interested in starting new industries here or expanding existing industries, and they are getting from me, from my Department and from the Government every facility and every possible encouragement. Deputies will realise that, on account of world conditions and world shortages, particularly of raw materials and machinery, some industries that probably would be started here right away cannot be started at present.
Deputy Larkin referred to the national economic council. He knows that matter has been discussed, both inside and outside this House, many times over the last 20 years, but nothing was ever done. I am having the matter reopened, with a view to fresh consideration of it and I will see what can be done.
Deputy Lynch mentioned that a monopoly was supposed to have been given to a Dublin firm for the manufacture of steel windows and that a Cork firm was being penalised. I am not aware of any such monopoly, but if the Deputy would be good enough to give me full particulars, I will inquire into the matter.
Deputies know the history of the Dublin bread strike and the settlement of it, so I need not go back on that. Deputies know that an application for wages was referred to the Labour Court which made an award or recommendation. That was not accepted by the bakers and they went on strike. My Department did all it possibly could to minimise the effects of that strike, particularly on the poor, by making flour freely available. However, the strike dragged on and undoubtedly inflicted very severe hardship on certain people, particularly on the very poor of the city. Deputies will realise that a bread strike is the most serious strike of all, particularly in a large city and that it weighs heavily where there are large families of young children. It dragged on and there was no sign of a settlement. Not only that, but it was conveyed to me that it was going to be extended and that the position might be considerably worsened.
I admit quite frankly that I was very reluctant to intervene and that, in the beginning I refused point blank to intervene, as I did not think I should intervene in these disputes, particularly in one which had been referred to the Labour Court. However, I felt I could not continue idly to stand by and watch these hardships being inflicted on poor people and on children. I thought I should do what I could to bring the parties together. Up to that time, efforts which had been made by others to get the parties to meet had not been successful. I issued an invitation to both parties to come to the Department and I met them there. I spoke to them very frankly on the whole matter and will not weary the House with all the negotiations, offers and rejections which are usual in a dispute of that kind.
At the end of the day, it was quite clear to me that, unless I was prepared to agree to whatever increase would be needed in the price of bread to meet the increase in wages, there would be no settlement of the strike on that day and certainly no settlement for a very considerable time, with the grave probability that the strike would be extended and that still further hardships would be inflicted on the people. In those circumstances, I agreed that I would allow the bakers an increase of not more than ¼d. on the 2-lb. loaf. That promise was made definitely and clearly to them. I also said at that time that the Government had decided —not in connection with the strike or arising out of it—mainly because there is a subsidy of nearly £10,000,000 required to enable bread to be sold at its present price, to inquire into the whole question of flour and bread production and the subsidy given to it.
