Supplies and Services (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1946 (Continuance) Bill, 1948—Second Stage.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. Cosgrave)

I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time.

I regret that it is necessary to approach the Dáil to continue the powers granted under the Supplies and Services Act, 1946, for another year. I had hoped that three years after the end of the war it would be possible to abandon the exceptional powers conferred on the Government by this Act Unfortunately, although there has been some improvement in the supply of various goods the position has not improved to such an extent that supplies are sufficient in all cases to meet present demand. Therefore it would not be possible to abandon rationing and controls in the case of a number of commodities as derationing would inevitably lead to some persons being unable to obtain minimum supplies of essential foods and possibly to increases in the cost of these goods with a corresponding increase in the cost of living.

Even where supplies are abundant at the moment, it is necessary to have regard to the disturbed international situation, with its possible repercussions on future supplies. This entails building up of reserve stocks and the retention of controls so as to ensure that reserves are not dissipated.

In some cases a world shortage of goods exists but even where there is no such shortage difficulties arise in connection with the purchase of needed commodities. Most surplus goods are in the hard currency areas and, in view of our limited supplies of such currency, we must take steps to confine our expenditure to goods which are absolutely essential. Accordingly even if world supplies of a particular commodity are plentiful it may be necessary to restrict consumption here so as to avoid expenditure of hard currency which is required for goods which are essential.

In addition to direct control of goods it is necessary to retain the powers in connection with price control. There have been certain reductions in the world price of a number of commodities, but in many instances prices continue to be greatly in excess of the level in 1939. The existing wholesale price index is 233 as compared with 100 in 1938, and the import price index which was 89 in 1938 is now 238. It is evident, therefore, that the general price level continues to be abnormally high and that the danger of inflation exists. If control were discontinued in relation to profits and prices the likelihood is that prices would advance still further and that the economic structure of the State would be endangered. Any further increases in the cost-of-living index which is 80 per cent. above 1939 must be avoided if possible. The increase is attributable very largely to the increase in the price of imported commodities over which we can exercise no direct control, but a certain proportion of that increase is also due to internal causes.

The Government is determined to resist any tendencies which will have the effect of increasing the cost-of-living. An increase would have the effect of depreciation in the real value of salaries and wages and would, in all probability, give rise to further demands for increases in wage levels which would again lead to further increases in price levels. In all these circumstances I can see no prospect of being able to relax price control for some considerable time to come. The experience during the prolonged period of Orders made under the Emergency Powers Act indicated that in many cases the Orders made to meet emergency conditions were suitable for incorporation in permanent legislation. Many of the Emergency Orders have now been made permanent by legislation and all Departments are at present examining the situation to see what permanent legislation can be promoted which will incorporate Orders that are required. In due course the proposals will be laid before the Dáil in the form of Bills and full opportunity will be available for discussion. There will still, however, remain large numbers of Orders which are only required to meet conditions of a temporary nature and so long as these are required, it will be necessary to ask the Dáil for the powers contained in the Supplies and Services Act.

I think it would be desirable at this stage to give the members of the Dáil some indication of the position as regards the more important goods which are subject to rationing or control. There is no prospect of supplies of petroleum products improving sufficiently in the near future to warrant a decision to remove controls. It is certain, indeed, that it will be necessary to maintain these controls for a considerable period ahead. In addition to the currency problem the principal factors contributing to this situation are insufficient refining capacity in the producing countries and a shortage of tankers. It must also be taken into account that there has been a steep increase in the world demand for petroleum oil products and there can be no doubt that this increase will continue. In our own case the estimated present annual demand for petrol on the basis of our full requirements would represent an increase of 33?% on our consumption in 1938. The increases in the case of kerosene would be 30% and in the case of fuel oil 400%.

The possibility of abolishing tea and sugar rationing is kept under constant review in my Department but I consider it would be inadvisable to take this step at present, having regard particularly to the international situation. Apart from this consideration there is some difficulty in purchasing the types and qualities of tea ordinarily used here, due to an increased demand for tea throughout the world generally, the fact that the Indonesian gardens from which we normally drew about 18 per cent. of our supplies are not yet in full production and that the current year's Indian tea crop was smaller than anticipated.

Supplies of tea in stock and in sight represent approximately one year's supply at the current ration rate or 11 months normal supply, and I feel it is desirable to maintain stocks at least at this level for some time as a reserve against possible contingencies.

The grounds for maintaining sugar rationing are somewhat the same. The world sugar position has not yet returned to normal and, having regard to currency difficulties, it is unlikely that we will be in a position to import a greater quantity in the year ending 30th June, 1949, than in the year ended 30th June last. As the stock of sugar on hands, including home production in the current season and purchases abroad which I have authorised, will only just enable distribution on the present basis to be maintained until the commencement of the 1949 home production season in November, 1949, I do not consider I would be justified in removing the present controls on distribution.

It is estimated that 500,000 tons of wheat would be required at the present extraction rate if bread and flour rationing were abolished. The consumption under rationing is 430,000 tons. The wheat crop this year will, it is hoped, amount to 250,000 tons and 100,000 tons of foreign wheat have already been imported. Additional imports of 112,000 tons are also expected. The total of 462,000 tons will be sufficient to maintain the ration on the present basis for the next twelve months and give a small carry-over for the next cereal year. It would be possible to purchase enough wheat to abolish rationing altogether but again this would involve the use of hard currency.

The production of creamery butter for the current year is estimated to be 560,000 cwts. which is not sufficient to provide a 60z. ration over the whole year. There has also been some reduction in the production of farm butter, but while the supply prospects give reason to hope that it will not be necessary to reduce the ration, I am afraid it will not be possible to consider the abolition of butter rationing for some time.

Soap is produced from imported vegetable oils which is subject to international control. The allocation to this country is much below our prewar imports and, consequently, rationing is necessary in order to ensure a fair supply to all consumers.

Owing to supply difficulties, it is necessary to continue the restrictions on certain commodities and exports of many of these goods are only permitted under licence. The Control of Exports Order, 1940, is kept under constant review and commodities are removed from it from time to time according as the supply position justifies. A review has recently taken place and I am glad to be able to announce to the Dáil a number of commodities which are now free from any export control. The main goods are biscuits, carpets, carpeting, floor rugs, cider, canned fruit and jam, leather manufactures other than footwear, paper, cardboard and manufactures thereof, other than wastepaper or printed matter, porter, beer and ale, and wine excluding imported wine. There are a number of less important items and they are readily available to anyone who requires them.

Because of supply difficulties in other directions it will be necessary to retain control over certain other goods, but on the basis of the existing position, it will be possible to give export licences to commercial exporters in the case of the following goods: Jams, marmalade and fruit jellies, rubber manufactures, pipes for smoking and sugar confectionery.

I should say that all the orders made under the Supplies and Services Act are kept under constant review, and, as the necessity for their continued existance ceases, they are withdrawn. During the last year, orders relating to the control of clothing, textiles, footwear and fuel have been revoked, as well as numerous other less important orders which imposed controls on various types of goods. Restrictions of any type, no matter how necessary they may be, are vexatious to the public and generally restrictive of business and commercial enterprise, and we are as anxious as anyone else to get rid of these controls. Whenever the supply position makes their continued existence unnecessary, they will be revoked. An annual list is published showing the orders which are still in force.

Mr. Lemass

I presume it is necessary to continue this Act for another year, but, on the occasion of the introduction of the continuing Bill, I think it is desirable that we should review the use that is being made of the powers conferred on the Government by the Act and the necessity for many of the restrictions now in force. I found the brief statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary as to the need for continuing the rationing of bread, sugar and tea very unconvincing. Perhaps he will be able to give us more covincing reasons when replying and it may help him if I set out the particular points regarding these commodities upon which I, and, I am sure, many other members of the Dáil and, I know, many members of the public are puzzled.

We want, as the Parliamentary Secretary told us, 500,000 tons of wheat per year to abolish rationing. This country went through the war years without rationing bread. The introduction of bread rationing at the time it came into force was not then due to a scarcity of supplies. It was due more to the pressure which was exerted upon us by the International Emergency Food Council. I do not want to be taken as suggesting that rationing might not have become necessary in any event, because of scarcity, but, at the time we resorted to it, our position was that we had unrationed consumption, whereas other countries were rationed, and some of them very severely rationed, and it was made clear to us by the International Emergency Food Council which had then been formed and was controlling the allocation of the world's wheat export surplus, that it would be difficult for the council to allocate supplies for us, unless we introduced rationing here.

We introduced rationing here and have maintained it since. In the meantime, however, Great Britain has abolished bread rationing and I want to be given some explanation as to how it is possible for the British Government to obtain, through the International Emergency Food Council, a sufficiency of wheat to enable them to abolish rationing, while we still have it. If the situation is that we could get, through that council or otherwise, sufficient wheat to meet the full requirement of 500,000 tons and are refusing to take it because of currency considerations or a general desire to reduce the total of our imports, we should be told that that is the reason. To suggest that there is difficulty in obtaining the wheat, assuming that the money to buy the wheat is available, leaves unanswered the question of how the British can do it. Their dollar position is no more easy than ours and their desire to restrict imports in order to adjust their adverse trade balance no greater than ours. How is it they can abolish bread rationing while we still have it?

I was informed by the Minister for Finance yesterday of the procurement authorisations under E.R.P. for the period to the end of June next. In the reply he gave me, he intimated that approximately 1,500,000 dollars had been made available for the purchase of wheat in the United States and approximately 4,500,000 dollars for the purchase of maize. There was a statement published in the papers in the past two or three weeks to the effect that the Government proposed to ask the administrator of E.R.P. to increase the maize authorisation at the expense of the wheat authorisation. I do not know if that statement was correct or not. If it is incorrect, I should like to have that made clear, but the suggestion was that the Government proposed, with the consent of the E.R.P. administrator——

Mr. Cosgrave

It was not an official statement.

Mr. Lemass

It was not, but it came apparently from some official American source, through the ordinary Press agencies. If it is not correct, I am quite satisfied and will not press the point. The position, I assume, is that some dollar wheat must be purchased, whether in the United States or Canada, in order to produce a satisfactory flour. I do not know what would be the minimum proportion of hard wheat which we would require to mix with the native crop in order to produce good flour, but it is, I think, undesirable that we should forego any possibility of obtaining supplies of wheat in the United States, involving as it does the maintenance of bread rationing, in order to increase by a comparatively small amount the maize allocation. The information available to me is that maize now in stock is difficult to sell at the price at which it is available and the maize that is coming will, I understand, be only very slightly cheaper.

One of the general questions of policy that arise in connection with this matter of bread supplies is, of course, the attitude of the Government to the growing of wheat here. It is true that the Government maintained during this year the guarantees as to price and market which we had given to farmers; but, at the same time, the Minister for Agriculture, by speech and by the general attitude which he showed at all times to wheat production, discouraged the growing of wheat here. We have, therefore, recorded a substantial drop in the wheat acreage this year.

It is true that that drop in acreage was offset entirely by a good harvest, but it seems on the face of it bad policy to be discouraging the growing of wheat at home, if the alternative is to utilise for the purchase of wheat a share of our limited dollar resources. It may be that non-dollar wheat is available, or will be available next year, in greater quantities than we could import it previously. I doubt if that is likely to be so. The information which has been published concerning the Australian crop does not appear to suggest that imports from that source will be any greater this winter than they were last winter and also the Argentine wheat is not likely to be available except against dollars. That being so, and as long as it is so, it seems to be the height of folly for the Minister for Agriculture to discourage in any way the production of wheat here. We always contemplated that the very high wheat acreage which was realised during the war would not be maintained after normal trading conditions had been restored, but it is quite clear that they have not been restored and will not be restored until it is possible for us to obtain dollars for the purchase of wheat in dollar areas otherwise than under the European Recovery Programme.

Whatever is to be said about wheat, however, I think there is nothing to be said to justify the continuance of sugar rationing. The Parliamentary Secretary, in his speech, made reference to the desirability of maintaining stocks in view of the international situation. That, I think, is a bogus excuse. He certainly did not say anything to suggest that there was positive action being taken to maintain at all times any substantial reserve stocks of wheat, sugar or tea. In the case of sugar, however, we have a supply position which, so far as I can calculate, would enable us to abolish rationing immediately and still have ample stocks of sugar for a considerable period ahead, against any emergency situation. In the case of our own sugar beet harvest, we had, as in the case of every other crop, a very good yield and in addition, because of the price arrangements announced last year, an increase in acreage. It seems clear that the produce of this season's sugar campaign will not be less than 80,000 tons. On that assumption, and calculating our full requirements of sugar at about 100,000 tons per year, we have, with stocks in hand, enough sugar to maintain full unrationed consumption well into the 1949-50 campaign.

If, however, that is not so, I would draw the Parliamentary Secretary's attention to the fact that the World Sugar Council—a body which, while it exercises no statutory functions, does deal generally with the problems of the sugar producing countries—have announced that, even in this year 1948, the total surplus of sugar from the sugar exporting countries is sufficient to meet the world's needs. I do not know upon what basis they calculate the world's needs. One of the problems with these international bodies is that they sometimes determine needs upon the basis of some theoretical standard of consumption prevailing generally throughout the world and sometimes on the far more realistic basis of actual demand which can be paid for. Assuming, however, that they are dealing in a commercial way with the problem of the disposal of the sugar crop they have estimated on, there is enough sugar available in this year to meet all the requirements of sugar of people who are prepared to buy it. The Council also estimate than in 1949 there will be a surplus of sugar and that being so, there appears no reason, having regard to our present available stocks and to the possibility of procuring supplies without restriction from other sources, why we should have sugar rationing. It is true that a substantial proportion of the world's sugar surplus is produced in dollar areas, but there are also, I understand, supplies available from non-dollar sources. In any event, it seems to me that the amount of sugar which we require, to supplement our available supplies if we abolish rationing, would not involve any serious consequences upon other dollar imports.

In the case of tea, again the situation is very unsatisfactory. The difference between the actual amount of tea which we would require to abolish rationing and the amount required to meet the present ration is insignificant. It certainly is not a reason for maintaining rationing and all the inconveniences to the public and traders which rationing involves. Tea can be purchased for sterling. There is no dollar difficulty here. It may be that we might have to take Ceylon tea or tea from districts in India from which Irish importers did not normally buy; but certainly it is possible to get enough tea to enable rationing to be abolished. The increase in imports would be slight, if the balance of trade is what is worrying the Government; and as I have said, there is no currency problem.

I wonder if the Parliamentary Secretary has considered what the maintenance of these restrictions means for traders. It was quite easy to contemplate the imposition of these restrictions when rationing first became necessary in 1940. We all hoped then that the war would not last more than a year or two, and that recovery from the war would not last more than a year or two after that; and that, at some fairly early date, it would be possible to remove these restrictions again. It is now eight years since they were imposed. During those eight years nobody has been able to go into the grocery business, for example, with any reasonable prospect of developing satisfactorily because development of a grocery business is difficult if the grocer is unable to supply tea and sugar to his customers. Quite a large number of young people who would normally have started on their own, leaving their fathers' establishments and becoming proprietors of their own business houses, have been denied the opportunity of doing so for a period of eight years.

I am not saying that it was not necessary to deny them that opportunity for a period but now if it is possible, even if it means some inconvenience, to remove these restrictions, and let normal conditions prevail, we should aim to do so. It seems to me there is no case for maintaining these restrictions because of the comparatively small additional demand that might be set up for tea and sugar. The difference in the case of tea would be small and even if the Government is opposed to that increase because the price of tea is subsidised, I am sure that if it is an essential condition that the cost of the subsidy should not be increased, the public would prefer to have a very small addition in price with the abolition of the restrictions rather than the present unsatisfactory position.

That is particularly true in the case of sugar. I realise that the Government have made it possible for people to buy additional sugar this year, that is to say, sugar over and above the standard ration, by a variety of devices. They were fraudulent devices, as I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary realises. People were allowed to buy sugar for making jam or for harvesting operations but nobody checked up to see whether, in fact, they were buying it for these permitted purposes. The only difference was that they had to pay 7½d. per lb. for the extra sugar whereas the price of sugar on the standard ration was 4d. per lb. The average price paid by consumers cannot be much below the economic sale price, assuming the Sugar Company is not making exceptional profits. They were making substantial profits up to this and they could afford to cut some of them if necessary in order to relieve the effect of abolishing the ration on the price of the commodity or on the cost to the Exchequer.

If, however, the excuse is that, in present international circumstances, we must maintain stocks, then can we be told are there stocks? Apparently there are no stocks of wheat. We have not even more than enough to meet the requirements of the present ration of flour and bread with a small carry-over into the next cereal year. There is certainly no evidence of any effort being made by the Government to accumulate stocks of wheat. That is a matter in which I am personally interested. At one time shortly after the war, I did advocate as a policy for the country the erection of proper wheat stores in which it would be possible to maintain here permanently a stock of wheat against the possibility of any emergency. There is no use talking about stocks of wheat if you cannot store them. Even the 250,000 acres of Irish wheat this year created a very acute storage problem and many farmers, who were anxious to sell their wheat, were told that it could not be taken from them because there was no place to put it.

In normal circumstances we always had a deficiency of storage here. I have argued this on other occasions and it applies not merely to wheat but to other commodities. This country was built up as an economic and commercial adjunct to Great Britain. The whole of our trade was done through British merchants and our supplies were obtained on a day-to-day basis from British warehouses. Because of historical causes we have had a deficiency of storage capacity and I have expressed the view, which I still hold, that if that storage capacity is not made good it will not be done by commercial enterprise, but will have to be done by the Government or with Government assistance. If there is a policy of storing wheat against any emergency that may arise, the sooner we set about providing stores the better. They do not exist at the moment. The same applies in the case of sugar. Even in the case of sugar which we purchased in 1947 it was not possible to bring it all in here owing to lack of storage. Some 20,000 or 25,000 tons had to be stored in Liverpool.

May I say that I was somewhat perturbed about that situation because it was a reproduction of a situation which arose in 1939. Before the war we were trying to accumulate stocks of wheat, sugar and other necessary commodities against the dangers which we foresaw. The Sugar Company was instructed to buy very substantial quantities of sugar as an emergency reserve. They did purchase that sugar, but I discovered on the day the war broke out that a substantial portion of the sugar bought was still in Liverpool. On that day the British Government issued an emergency Order which prohibited the export of sugar and it was not possible to tranship that sugar from Liverpool to this country. Again I say if there is a policy—I doubt very much that there is—but assuming the Parliamentary Secretary meant to convey that there is a policy of accumulating reserve stocks of wheat or sugar against another emergency, then the first step in that direction is the creation of the necessary storage facilities that do not exist now. That is true to a certain extent of tea also. It is probably true to say that tea can be stored anywhere, but I know that when after the war, with the end of the system under which we got our tea supplies through the British Food Ministry, we set up an organisation to buy tea direct in India, there was extraordinary congestion, particularly at the Dublin docks occasioned by the inflow of tea and the warehouses were crammed to the doors. The Dublin Port and Docks Board was going around the city trying to rent stores from private persons in which to put these tea supplies. It is quite obvious from what the Parliamentary Secretary says that tea is not being purchased to build up an emergency stock. If the total quantity of tea which the importing organisation, Tea Importers, Ltd., was instructed to buy this year, was 24,000,000 lbs., that is barely enough to maintain the ration distribution and contains no provision for an emergency reserve.

I should like to get some assurance that the only considerations which are determining the maintenance of the ration are the practical difficulties of supply. We have seen in the past few weeks an announcement of British policy which is designed to rehabilitate sterling and make it, in the course of three or four years, a hard currency like the United States dollar. To such an extent are the British pursuing that policy that they are risking a disruption of the European Recovery Programme and there are discussions proceeding at the moment in Paris, which the British Chancellor of the Exchequer is attending, which have been arranged in order to try to persuade the British Government to modify their austerity import programme to some extent. I would like to be assured that the Department of Finance, whose views in this matter I can suspect, are not pressing the Government here into a similar course.

I am not saying that we have not an interest in rehabilitating sterling or should not make our contribution to that end but I do not think we should be asked to make a greater contribution than the British Government themselves and, if they have decided to incur the expenditure which is involved for them in the abolition of bread rationing, we should at least do as much for our people.

The Parliamentary Secretary spoke also about price control and the necessity for maintaining price control. Let me say at once that I think the most unsatisfactory system of price control is that administered under the Supplies and Services Act. I have grave doubts as to whether in fact price control of that kind is keeping prices down. I have a feeling that in relation to drapery goods and to some other classes of commodities which are in sufficient supply prices would fall more rapidly if the multitude of price regulations now affecting these goods were abolished. Whether that is so or not, I think we have to face up to the fact that the system of price regulation operating under the Supplies and Services Act is very unsatisfactory. I recognised that last year and I brought in here a Bill called the Prices and Efficiency Bill to set up on a permanent basis an organisation for price control which would have permitted the dropping from the Supplies and Services Bill all the powers in relation to prices now given by it. Can the Parliamentary Secretary say what is going to happen to that Bill? Are we to take it that the Prices and Efficiency Bill, which got its Second Reading here before the general election, is dead? Do the Government agree that with the passing of the Supplies and Services Act some permanent organisation for price and profit regulation such as was contemplated by that Bill should be established? Do they contemplate preparing their proposals and submitting them to the Dáil in any reasonable time?

May I at this stage also comment upon one extraordinary blunder which the Department appears to have made in relation to tea prices during the year? Just as they decided to give out more sugar than was involved in the standard ration, but at a very much higher price, so also it was decided to give out more tea on various pretexts, also at a much higher price than that fixed for the standard ration. Tea was given for harvesting. Extra tea was allowed to caterers at a price of 5/- a lb. Apparently, it did not occur to the Department that if caterers and farmers engaged in harvesting and others who were covered by these Orders were permitted to buy tea at 5/- per lb., traders holding ordinary stocks, stocks which were allowed to them to meet the ration requirements of their customers at 2/8 a lb., would be very anxious to sell to caterers and harvesters. I grant that the Department rectified the error in the course of three or four weeks and made another Order which confined the higher price to tea sold direct by Tea Importers, Limited, but it seems to me to have been an extraordinary blunder. Personally, I thoroughly dislike this underhand method of increasing rations. If the policy of the Government was to increase tea distribution or sugar distribution, but to do it in a way that would not involve any additional subsidy, I think they would have been much wiser to have made their intentions known plainly and to have adjusted the standard ration and the price of the standard ration accordingly.

The giving to people of extra sugar provided they say they want it for jam-making, when everybody knows that 90 per cent. of those who bought it did not want it for jam-making and did not use it for jam-making, the giving of extra tea and sugar for harvesting on the mere production of a clipping out of a newspaper, without any investigation as to whether the person buying the tea was even a farmer, all tends to bring these regulations into contempt and I regard it as a completely unsatisfactory method of giving out additional supplies, while, on paper, maintaining the avowed policy of the Government of not increasing prices. In fact, it did increase prices but it does not affect the cost-of-living index number and that is all the Government cares about.

Mr. Cosgrave

That is all you cared about yourself.

Mr. Lemass

We never adopted tricks of that type.

Mr. Norton

You got a new index figure.

Mr. Lemass

To continue the Supplies and Services Act for another year is the more convenient arrangement for the Government but I am quite sure that if I were still Minister and proposing it I would be told, as I was told on other occasions, that the Bill gives the Government far too wide powers, powers which it is unnecessary for the Government to have under present circumstances. I will admit that because at least of butter, if nothing else, the Government must still have power to maintain rationing and that a Bill to empower it to ration commodities and make the necessary regulations for that purpose would be needed if the Supplies and Services Act were dropped. I think the Department's function of price control should long ago have passed to some permanent organisation such as I proposed in the Prices and Efficiency Bill but I am by no means satisfied that it is necessary to have all these drastic powers of controlling the import and the export of commodities by Government direction, whether written or oral, which, however necessary they were during the more difficult period of the war, appear to be out of all relation to present circumstances.

I heard here a Deputy asking the Minister for Agriculture last week whether he would give a permit to people to export parsnips. Why is it necessary for anyone to go to any Minister to get permission to export parsnips much less to have the matter raised for discussion here in the Dáil? Is there a scarcity of parsnips? If there were, I am quite certain there would be nobody seeking to export them. The maintenance of regulations of that kind is only a source of public irritation. It is all right for the Parliamentary Secretary to tell us now that we can get export licences for smoking pipes, and things of that kind.

Mr. Cosgrave

The parsnips regulation is a legacy from Deputy Smith's tenure as Minister for Agriculture. We have not got around to taking them all off.

Mr. Lemass

Why have not you? You had a whole year in which you were doing very little else.

Mr. Cosgrave

We did a good bit.

Mr. Lemass

The same applies to the regulation of imports. There is, as far as agricultural commodities are concerned, permanent legislation — the Agricultural Products (Regulation of Imports) Act, 1938. So far as industrial imports are concerned there is little need to maintain emergency powers to control them because I left the Government ample powers to deal with any problem arising out of the import of industrial products. So far as industrial exports are concerned, they can always fall back, as I fell back, upon the Fellmongers Act which is quite effective for regulating all forms of industrial exports.

One of the advantages of using these permanent Acts is that they set out the manner in which the Minister must proceed. They prescribe, usually, for the publication of Orders and even in some cases for the possibility of Orders being annulled by a vote of the Dáil. Under the Supplies and Services Act the Orders do not have to be published. They cannot be annulled. In some cases, as the Parliamentary Secretary is no doubt fully aware, Orders do not have to be even written; they can be given orally, and I can see nothing in present circumstances affecting any commodity which necessitates the retention of these powers. It was certainly our intention to have stripped the Government of all these emergency powers to the fullest possible extent by this time. We had hoped that where experience had shown that powers acquired under emergency Orders had a permanent value to replace them by permanent legislation and in all cases to relinquish the powers that were no longer required. I grant you that the incoming Government might not have been able to proceed as speedily and as efficiently as the Government they replaced in that work, but I must confess I suspect there was a general slowing down of the movement in that direction. I am not going to vote against the Government getting the Supplies and Services Act for another year, but I warn them that if they are there this time 12 months they will not get it as easily because I hope that by then not only will all the unnecessary powers have become inoperative, but that the necessary powers such as price control will have acquired permanent legislation. I am sorry if I have introduced any dissension into the Government with regard to the Prices and Efficiency Bill. I personally heard Deputy Norton in County Kildare urging my rejection by the electorate because I intended to drop the Bill entirely. That statement was not true. The following afternoon I happened to be passing through a Dublin street and I heard the present Taoiseach urge the electorate to reject me because I was not agreeable to drop the Bill. Seeing that there was such difference of opinion among the Government, I thought it possible that the Tánaiste might go out in a huff.

Mr. Norton

Why did you run away from it?

Mr. Lemass

I did not run away from it. I had it here for Second Reading.

Mr. Norton

You put it in cold storage.

Mr. Lemass

I did not put it in cold storage. The electorate put me in cold storage. It is still there and could be brought in to-morrow if he wished.

Mr. Norton

Why do you not.

Mr. Lemass

If the Tánaiste wants me to introduce it as a Private Member's Bill I will do it, but there would be some difficulty under Standing Orders I imagine.

Mr. Norton

Why such last minute modesty on your part?

Mr. Lemass

All I am asking now— and it is a very reasonable request—is to be told is it dead or alive or will we ever see it even in a modified form? The Government must at some stage face up to the problem of a permanent price control organisation. When are they going to do it? If they are still the Government next year they had better do it next year as otherwise there will be much more difficulty in regard to this Act than there is now.

Mr. Norton

There is a suspicion that they will be here next year.

Mr. Lemass

I have a strong suspicion that they will hold on as long as they can.

Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 2 Dec 1948

Supplies and Services (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1946 (Continuance) Bill, 1948—Second Stage.

Mr. Browne

A Deputy

Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 2 Dec 1948