Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 13 Nov 1952

Vol. 134 No. 11

Control of Imports (Road Vehicle Bodies) Order—Motion of Approval.

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. Lemass)

I move:—

That Dáil Éireann hereby approves of the Control of Imports (Quota No. 10) Order, 1934 (Road Vehicle Bodies) (Amendment) Order, 1952.

The purpose of this Order was to bring subject to quota restriction imports of commercial motor vehicles. For the last 18 years, motor vehicles constructed for the carriage of passengers were subject to a quantitative regulation as regards imports. Similar restrictions do not apply to the vehicles constructed for the carriage of goods. Some time ago the National Union of Vehicle Builders and the Coachbuilders' Association, representing both parties engaged in the construction of motor vehicles for the carriage of goods, made representations to me to the effect that the importation of complete vehicles was increasing not apparently because there was any price advantage in importing these vehicles but merely because of the more expeditious delivery that could be secured from cross Channel than from home assemblers. I considered these representations and came to the conclusion that there was no good reason why the same restrictions should not apply for commercial vehicles as applied previously to passenger vehicles and that if these restrictions were imposed it would be of substantial benefit to the trade and permit of the re-employment of vehicle builders who had been affected by the increased imports.

Before coming to that decision, however, I consulted the Irish Motor Traders' Association as the body who I thought would be most likely to have a contrary view if it could be advanced. I found they were supporting the application. I concluded that it was one which was likely to ensure increased employment in the assembly trade as well as in the coach-building trade and would have no detrimental effects. Increased employment would be afforded directly in the assembly of these vehicles or in the building of bodies for them.

The effect of the restriction is to increase the home demand for various accessories like tyres, tubes, sparking plugs, glass, upholstery and so forth, so that from every aspect, it would be a desirable step to take. The Government agreed and now the Dáil is being asked for confirmation.

Mr. Sweetman

Could the Minister give us any indication of the number of people who will be employed in the vehicle-building industry and the number of people who will be likely to be directly concerned in this?

Mr. Lemass

The number employed as a whole would be around 4,000 or 5,000 but the number employed in the construction of commercial vehicles could not be as precisely stated. On the assumption that the same number of commercial vehicles would be required and that——

Mr. Sweetman

I am afraid that assumption will hardly hold water in view of the proposals of the Minister for Local Government.

Mr. Lemass

I am not so sure of that but assuming that the vehicles will now be built here, approximately 50 would be employed directly in addition to the number previously employed.

Mr. Sweetman

Could the Minister give any indication of the comparative prices of the vehicles that will be produced here with the prices of those imported?

Mr. Lemass

Evidence suggests that the vehicles built here are cheaper than the imported vehicles. Imported vehicles have been subject to import duty and the reason for the importation appears to be more for convenience of delivery than for any other factor.

Mr. McGrath

Will it cover bus bodies?

Mr. Cosgrave

Could the Minister state whether this means the alteration of some requirement in the method of construction in respect of certain cars? The experience after the emergency was that this technique had been employed in assembling vehicles and that particular models had portion of the wing attached to part of the side of the car where formerly they were all separate. When the assemblers found that the particular Orders applying to them prevented them importing the vehicles in that state, they were obliged in some cases to take them apart and in some way or other alter the construction. I think application was made to have the Order amended because the position was that it was open to them to break up part of the body which came in. In fact, that meant a waste of time and effort and probably left the finished job in a worse condition than it would have been in had the vehicles been allowed in in their original state.

Mr. Lemass

These vehicles were not subject to quota restrictions.

Mr. Cosgrave

Do both of these Orders refer to commercial vehicles only?

Mr. Lemass

Yes.

Mr. Sweetman

And not to buses.

Mr. Lemass

Deputy Cosgrave may have in mind that at one time the bodies were entirely coach-built. The construction of a pressed steel body is a recent development. The effect of this Order is to require the assembly of these pressed steel bodies here as well as to restrict the importation of coach-built vehicles.

Mr. Cosgrave

I do not know whether this applies as well to what are commonly known as station wagons?

Mr. Lemass

No. These are vehicles for the carriage of goods.

Mr. Cosgrave

Only?

Mr. Lemass

Yes.

Mr. Dillon

We are all aware of the anachronism that arose in connection with the Order which applied to passenger-carrying vehicles which were not subject to quota but which were subject to a punitive duty if they were brought in in a broken-down condition to be assembled in Ireland.

Mr. Lemass

They were subject to quotas.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister is mistaken. The assembled car was subject to quota but you could bring in a broken-down car. If it was not broken down within the terms of the Order made it would not get the benefit of a preferential rate of duty.

Mr. Lemass

The Deputy is probably thinking of the reduced rate of road tax.

Mr. Dillon

No, no. I know that out of these Orders arose a situation in which at the North Wall unassembled parts of a car would be delivered on the quay. The assembler would have to go down and disassemble the parts delivered at the quay. He would send a staff down to the North Wall to disassemble them, load them and bring them to his workshop and there reassemble them. I believe that at one stage one importer maintained a gentleman at the North Wall with a sledge hammer whose business it was to smash the wind-screen and two windows and then bring the cars down to his assembly plant and put in a new wind-screen and two new windows.

Another gentleman, I believe, had to bring down a mobile welder, cut the roof of the car as it was delivered at the North Wall and then bring it up to the workshop and reassemble it in order to bring it within the definition of the appropriate instruction. Is the Minister satisfied that the instrument he now makes in regard to these goods vehicles has in it sufficient elasticity to permit of these vehicles being described as entirely effectually broken down for the purpose of the Order if there are from time to time slight variations of the character referred to by Deputy Cosgrave? It is reducing the procedure to a howling farce and I think it is extremely offensive to hard-working men who want to earn their bread in dignity by doing honest work to bring them down to the North Wall and get them to cut up a car in order to bring it to the workshop in Dublin and undo what they have already done at the North Wall.

Though I believe this practice is now suspended, the picture of having a gentleman with a sledge-hammer below at the North Wall to break the windows and windscreens out of the unassembled body of a car because the consignor in the United States of America began putting windows and wind-screens in is just to reduce the whole business to a horrible farce. We all know that where regulations are made, there may be a momentary obligation to do anachronistic things of this kind but when an anachronism of that kind does arise, we should take precautions, when making similar Orders thereafter, to ensure that there is wide enough discretion in the Order to permit of such practices being declared unnecessary and not have the work of respectable men turned into what would appear to be fraudulent activities.

The Minister should assure us that these Orders are of a character that if, in some future alteration of design on the part of the consignors, which does not amount to assembly but which does not correspond with complete disassembly, there will be sufficient elasticity to permit admission under this Order, provided there is substantial compliance with the purpose of providing the materials for the assembly industry as at present established in Dublin.

Mr. Lemass

If what Deputy Dillon says ever happened——

Mr. Dillon

The Minister knows it happened.

Mr. Lemass

——it could only be because some importer decided to ignore the regulations in force. Anybody deciding to import a car in a knocked-down condition could easily find out before the goods started to move to this country what the regulations were and arrange for importation in accordance with these regulations. It may have happened that some importer decided to take a chance on bringing in vehicles in a condition in which he knew they would not be admitted and when they arrived said: "They are here now and it is unreasonable to expect me to send them back." I do not know if that did happen, but nobody need at any time have had any doubt in his mind as to the conditions in which importation was permitted. So far as these vehicles are concerned, the best answer I can give the Deputy is that all the parties concerned—the makers here, the trade unions and distributors of the vehicles—are all agreed as to the terms of this Order.

Mr. Sweetman

Is it not perfectly obvious that they would be?

Mr. Lemass

The distributors also are agreed.

Mr. Sweetman

Surely it is perfectly obvious that they would be and that it is because of that that we will be dealing at a later stage with a Restrictive Practices Bill? I do not mean in regard to this trade, but it is because importers and distributors get together that we have to have a Restrictive Practices Bill. Our anxiety here should be, on the one hand, to define that it is a practice which is entirely proper for the trade—the importers and distributors the Minister mentioned—and satisfy ourselves, on the other, because the two must be correlated, that the consumers are properly protected. I suggest that is the function of this House and it is because of that function that these Orders have to come to the Dáil and be ratified by the Dáil. The Dáil is supposed to be the place where the Minister justifies not merely the trade point of view but the trade-cum-consumer point of view. The Minister has adverted only to the trade point of view.

Mr. Lemass

No. I referred to the distributors' organisation, the importers of these vehicles.

Mr. Sweetman

I am counting them in the trade. They would be regarded as being in the trade. The Order sets out:

"The word ‘body', whether used alone or in the expression ‘body shell,' means a motor-car body which is completely assembled..."

Do I understand that that phraseology refers purely to the ordinary lorry, as we understand it or would it refer——

Mr. Lemass

To a delivery van.

Mr. Sweetman

——to a trailer used behind a tractor?

Mr. Lemass

It does not apply to trailers.

Mr. Sweetman

Can the Minister further tell me what is the point of the exclusion at the end? Why are bodies which are to carry 15 persons considered as the marginal point? It seems a most extraordinary figure. Though there may be a great many people packed into a hackney-car going down to the Curragh races, 15 would seem to be a most unusual figure. I presume there must be some reason for it.

Mr. Lemass

It excludes omnibuses.

Mr. Sweetman

But why was the figure 15 chosen? I do not believe that the Minister just thought of a number and jotted it down. There must have been some reason for it.

Mr. Lemass

I think it is hallowed by tradition.

Mr. Sweetman

It still seems somewhat odd. Does this include also electrically-propelled commercial vans?

Mr. Lemass

Yes.

Mr. Sweetman

Is it possible to have them properly assembled here? I understood there was some difficulty about that. The Order refers to a "motor-car body". Is the electrically-driven van which we see going around the city a motor-car? I thought a motor-car was something that worked on pistons and combustion.

Mr. Lemass

I think the Deputy is right in that. Electrically-driven vehicles are not caught by this Order. There is a whole series of quota Orders and it is not easy offhand to give the full effect in a particular case, but electrically-propelled vehicles are not subject to this Order.

Mr. Sweetman

There are a lot of electrically-driven vans.

Mr. Lemass

There are, yes.

Question put and agreed to.