I formally second the motion. In speaking to it I should like to lay particular emphasis upon the first part which reads:—
"That Dáil Eireann is of the opinion that the Government should examine speedily the desirability of the establishment of a Bureau of Standards for consumer goods for the guidance and protection of consumers."
I place special emphasis on that phrase "for the guidance and protection of consumers" because consumers generally in this country, and the housewife in particular, have absolutely no protection, no guidance in the selection of goods and are a prey to various forms of petty and mean exploitation which could not take place if this machinery were in operation. Unlike my colleague Deputy James Tully, I would not be in favour of the type of bureau in existence across the water because it is not set up by the Government and is not controlled by the Government. It is left to the desires of particular manufacturers who have their own reasons for seeing that goods are designed according to specific standards. They are prudent enough to know the intelligent consumers will buy because they get a guarantee of standards.
I am concerned that the Minister and the Department concerned here would set up a body which might be called, for want of a better name, a consumers' advisory council, where consumers would have an opportunity of ensuring that an article which is advertised and offered for sale is exactly what it purports to be. This is no new departure in this country. Already you have a system of protection for consumers in other countries at the expense of this State. Many of our food factories export to other countries, particularly to Great Britain, and a specific standard has been laid down as to the quality and quantity of the goods. The funny part of it is that our inspectors on duty in these factories ensure that the goods leaving this country and going to consumers outside are up to a very high standard. We pay for that protection for consumers in other countries but nobody at all protects the consumer at home.
I think I gave an example like this in speaking on the Supplies and Services Bill last year when I said, in the case, for example, of stewed steak, that the actual amount of meat in the tin must be not less than 75 per cent., not less than 15 per cent. vegetables and the remainder in water. If any tin on the belt—all tins come off in belts—is found deficient in the essential specifications it is not scrapped or discarded. It is not good enough for outside countries but the Irish consumer has to accept these goods willy-nilly. If we consider it worth while to ensure that goods leaving the country for consumers outside the country must maintain a standard, surely it is not too much to ask that our own consumers would have the same high standard of quantity and quality?
I believe that a body such as this, a piece of machinery such as this, would contribute in no small way to a general lowering of the cost of living because consumers, manufacturers, and producers of consumer goods would have to give a certain minimum quantity and quality in their goods. This applies not only to foodstuffs but to clothing, shoes, household furniture, household linen and everything else. There is in America I know a consumers' council and manufacturers are punishable by law, I believe, if they infringe upon the specifications laid down. For example, if an article is advertised as rayon and wool it must contain not less than a certain percentage of rayon and wool. They have adopted the simple expedient that the actual component which forms the greater part of the article must always go first. That, in a certain way, has been adopted here but the customers generally are not aware of it.
Take for example jam. During the emergency or the war period, when jams were rationed, the jam manufacturers got together and arranged to produce a type of jam which they called strip jam because the label on the jars was a strip label and did not specify by whom the jam was manufactured. You had raspberry-and-apple jam and apple-and-raspberry jam and the difference in the prices of those two jams was quite considerable. In the apple-and-raspberry the amount of raspberry was negligible while the amount of apple was naturally considerable being a much cheaper component. The price was based on the prices of the apples and raspberries that the jam contained, and for price-fixing purposes the proportions were assessed at 50 per cent. of each. I cannot say with any reasonable degree of certainty that this practice still obtains, but as a housewife and a consumer who uses quite a lot of jam I can say there are such kinds as apple-and-raspberry, raspberry-and-apple, apple-and-blackcurrant and blackcurrant-and-apple. I believe a bureau of standards, as envisaged by this motion, would ensure that when manufacturers are offering goods for sale to the public and mixing components or ingredients, and when they base prices on the cost of ingredients in a particular article, they should be compelled to publish the exact percentage of each commodity of which the article is made up. They would be precluded in that way from getting a fancy price for an article composed of commodities the prices of which bear no relation to the overall price of the product.
I know it will not be easy to ensure this and I know that the Government will have to give some consideration to it, but in view of the fact that many commodities are selling to-day, as a result of high-pressure advertising, and that thousands of pounds per annum are being spent by these firms in advertising within and without this country to promote the sale of consumer goods, I think the Government would perform a good day's work if it set up a body of this kind which would ensure that the manufacturers could not, as a result of glib and high-pressure advertising, get away with the sale of commodities that are not exactly what they purport to be.
Another aspect of the protection and guidance of consumers would be that of weights of proprietary goods. In other words, when packet or packed food is sold the weight, in my opinion, should be a net weight and not a gross weight. If you buy a packet of cereal and the overall content of the packet and cereal is only four and a half ounces, why should that be allowed to be sold in this country and the weight alleged to be from six to seven ounces? Many housewives have examined packet goods and discovered to their amazement that, not only did the article fall far short of the gross weight but, even allowing for the packet, the alleged net weight was not even correct. Having regard to the fact that most factories pack goods by machinery where measuring is done with mechanical accuracy—one hesitates to say it openly—one must think that perhaps they are not quite as honest as we would like them to be. The percentage of deficiency might be nothing in one packet but over 100,000 packets it means quite a considerable amount.
I think the consumers would eventually find the consumers' advisory service and bureau of standards would ultimately result in good to themselves. Any reputable manufacturer whose goods can stand the test of the bureau of standards would welcome this type of machinery. The body, if necessary—I do not want to go into the mechanics of the matter: it is a matter for the Department—while not making it compulsory for every manufacturer to submit goods for a standard mark, could issue a mark to manufacturers willing to submit their goods for examination—a stamp or crest of some kind—which would indicate to consumers that the article had been passed by the Government body as being of the correct weight, standard, quality and so on.
I do not think any consumer would ask for more, and if this body were provided consumers generally, I think, would feel that a Government at long last had decided to take a real interest in the day-to-day problems of the ordinary consumer. That, I think, is a very important point. I do not want to labour it too much but it would result in the long run in greater efficiency on the part of the manufacturers who would not require so much protection from imported goods as they seem to require at the moment. You would be giving the Irish housewife and in particular the Dublin housewife a guarantee that she was getting the best possible value for the hard-earned money she has to spend on goods and food for her family.
