Skip to main content
Normal View

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 7 Nov 1956

Vol. 160 No. 5

Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Transport of Mussels.

asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce whether he is aware that a consignment of mussels sent from Killorglin to Hull on 15th October did not arrive at their destination until the 18th idem with the result that they were unfit for human consumption and were therefore rejected, and that this is not an isolated instance; and if, in view of the serious hardship thus caused to fishermen in the Killorglin and surrounding districts and the grave harm that such delays inflict on the mussel industry as a whole, he will make inquiries from the transport organisations concerned as to the cause of the delay and ask such organisations to arrange for a more speedy and effective delivery in future.

I would suggest to the Deputy that any representations he may wish to make in regard to delays occasioned to goods in transit should be addressed direct to the transport undertaking by whose services the goods were consigned. The Deputy is, no doubt, aware that transport undertakings have sole responsibility for their commercial operations.

Is the Minister aware that extreme measures have been taken to develop and promote this industry and that, if some steps are not taken to safeguard the interests of the people concerned, the industry will go out of existence? Would the Minister, in the circumstances, at least not make representations to C.I.E. in the first instance or to other transport companies that would be a party to this breakdown in the services? I, on behalf of the industry concerned, have been requested to ask him to do so.

The Deputy is making an assertion and a speech.

The position is that whoever consigned these goods, obviously, should make inquiries from the transport company or companies which carried them in the ordinary way. I hardly think that it was ever intended that the arrangement of parliamentary question and answer should be used as a means of tracing missing goods sent by a transport service, which is the use the Deputy is trying to make of parliamentary question and answer.

Top
Share