Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 1 Jul 1964

Vol. 211 No. 8

Supplementary Estimate, 1964-65. - Vote 19—Stationery Office.

Dr. Ryan

I move:

That a sum not exceeding £404,200 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1965, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Stationery Office; for Printing and Binding, and the provision of Paper, Publications, Office Machinery, and other Office Supplies for Public Services; and for sundry Miscellaneous Purposes, including the publication and sale of Reports of Oireachtas Debates, Bills, Acts and Other Government Publications.

Mr. Sweetman

I am not quite clear whether it is the fault of the printing contractors with whom the Stationery Office sets the contract or whose fault it is but there is appalling delay in the production of the bound volumes of the Dáil debates. The Minister will appreciate and I know he will agree with me at once when I say it is extremely difficult to keep track of back references in the unrevised and unindexed daily volumes. There really should be a serious effort made over the long vacation we are now to have to get us right up to date. There was, I know, a suggestion some time ago that some new system of indexing had been brought in that was making confusion more confounded. I am not clear where the bottleneck is but I would urge the Minister strongly to get together with the Stationery Office, from their point of view, and with the Ceann Comhairle from the point of view of the offices of the Houses here, to make sure that, when we have to have such a long adjournment because of the building operations, that long period will be utilised for the purpose of having all our Dáil debates, right up to the present volume, bound and indexed before we come back in November.

Dr. Ryan

The Deputy has hit the nail on the head there. There are two delays in the production of these bound volumes. No. 1 is indexing and that was largely a staff matter. The indexing had fallen very seriously in arrear but I believe in recent times it is being brought back to normal and, as the Deputy pointed out, during the long holiday it can be attended to. Secondly, there is the ordinary delay in printing which is very prevalent in all printing operations at the moment. However, I do not think there will be a long delay if the volume is presented to the printer properly indexed, and so on.

Mr. Sweetman

Is there any justification for the rumour I hear that the method of indexing was entirely changed and that it is the arbitrary change of method which is responsible for the indexing delay?

Dr. Ryan

I have not heard that; I do not know.

Mr. Sweetman

Would the Minister have it investigated?

Dr. Ryan

Yes.

Mr. Tully

Is it intended to change the form of the Order Paper itself? This was a recommendation made some time ago by the Committee on Procedure and Privileges to the Stationery Office. As the Minister knows, the Order Paper is most inconvenient. It makes a great deal of noise during questions and it should be possible to change the type of paper and the format.

Dr. Ryan

I shall look into that.

Mr. Dillon

Does the Minister's general undertaking in respect of indexing refer to the quinquennial index? What is urgently needed and what we have not had since 1951-54 is the index that covers a period of five years. There used to be one published every five years and that has fallen now ten years in arrear. I should be glad if the Minister would go into that because without that volume, reference back to the previous debates is extremely difficult.

Dr. Ryan

I imagine that if an officer is being pushed to get the indexing done, he would be inclined to index each volume as he goes along and only when he had time to spare would he go back and combine the indexes. I agree with the Deputy it is very important but to index each volume as it comes along is the more urgent matter.

Mr. Dillon

I should have thought that if that matter were put in hand and brought up to date the difficulty of combining the index into one volume covering a five-year period would be relatively small. It means amalgamating the indexes of the individual volumes into one volume and publishing them separately as an index. Perhaps the Minister would look up the matter and see if it could be done.

Dr. Ryan

Yes.

Mr. Sweetman

There is another small matter I wish to raise on this Estimate. One day the Minister was not here and his Parliamentary Secretary answered a question for him. I was raising the new form to be issued in estate duty cases. The Parliamentary Secretary said the form would be out by the end of that week. That was March or April. Clearly he was thinking of something else because I do not think the form has even been settled yet. I want to make a very strong plea to the Minister that whenever any new form is being brought in it will be brought in on foolscap size. Some of the estate duty forms are so big that no ordinary photostat machine will take them. The Minister is, of course, aware that in relation to copies of documents nowadays photostat machines are being used, very properly, to get better productivity. The very large type of photostat machine will take the big schedule of assets but the ordinary photostat machine in most offices will not take anything more than foolscap.

It would be very much more convenient for everybody, including the Department itself, because the stuff would come back more correctly, that there would be two pages of foolscap size rather than one page of a much bigger size which nobody could copy. It would to a very great extent ease the burden of practitioners who have to deal with these matters.

I should perhaps raise this point on the Revenue Commissioners Estimate rather than on this one but I want to make only a passing reference to it as I have mentioned the Estate Duty Office. There was some considerable delay in that Office which seems to be improving somewhat now and I hope that, if it is necessary to get a reasonably quick service in the office, the Minister will provide the staff required.

Dr. Ryan

I see the point of the Deputy's remarks and I think it very important that the size of the forms should be brought down to dimensions that could be dealt with by the ordinary typing and photostatic machine.

Mr. Sweetman

Perhaps the Minister will take it up with the Director of the Stationery Office because he will be dealing with forms from every office.

Vote put and agreed to.