I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. Deputies, I think, are aware that Orders made by the Government under the Emergency (Imposition of Duties) Act, 1932, have to be confirmed by the Dáil within eight months or else they cease to be operative. This Bill is designed to secure the confirmation of a number of Orders made during the present year imposing, reimposing or altering certain protective duties, and the earliest of them has to be confirmed by legislation before the 24th June. The commodities affected by these Orders are: cotton quilts and blankets; cast-iron baths; metal pot scourers; component parts of bicycles; personal clothing and wearing apparel; plastic toilet seats and covers; cotton thread and ply yarn; ungalvanised rainwater goods; hard surface floor coverings; dressed sheep skins; agricultural forks and wooden handles. Of these duties, those imposed on cast-iron baths, metal pot scourers, plastic toilet seats and covers and dressed sheep skins are new protective duties. The other Orders either effect some change in existing duties or reimpose duties that have been temporarily suspended. In the case, for example, of cotton quilts and cotton blankets, the Order merely effects an administrative change by transferring these articles from the category of woven articles for domestic use to the category of bedding without altering the rate of duty. It achieved an administrative conveyance in the administration of the duty.
The Order dealing with certain component parts of bicycles removed from the scope of the tariff certain components that are not likely to be manufactured here at an early date.
In the case of cotton thread, ply yarn and agricultural forks, the existing duty had been suspended during the war. The present Orders affecting these goods restored the duties at reduced rates.
The Order relating to agricultural forks also deals with wooden handles. The position was that different types of wooden handles were subject to duty at different rates, and there was considerable difficulty in enforcement. It led sometimes to the evasion of the full duty. Now, one uniform rate of duty has been made effective on all types of wooden handles.
The Order dealing with personal clothing and wearing apparel restored to the clothing industry the same degree of protection as was granted to the industry before the war.
Iron and steel rainwater goods are subject to duty if protected by galvanising. The practice was developed of protecting them by painting instead of galvanising. Articles so protected were held by the Revenue Commissioners to be exempt from the duty, and the definition has been altered now so as to prevent the evasion of duty by that device.
The only other Order to which reference must be made is that relating to the duty upon hard-surface floor coverings, that is to say, oilcloths. They were subject to a standard rate of duty of 6d. per square yard, which was imposed prior to the war. The duty became less effective with the alteration in values since the war and has been raised to a flat rate of 1/- per square yard.
