asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will give the names and addresses of pencil manufacturers in this country; and if these manufacturers have been approached to provide a suitable pencil for the public service.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Manufacture of Pencils for Public Service.
23.
Faber Castell (Ireland) Ltd., Fermoy are the only manufacturers of pencils in the State. It is understood that the Stationery Office, which purchases pencils for the public service, always invites the Irish firm to tender before purchases are made.
Might I ask the Minister whether or not inquiries have been made of the manufacturers as to the manufacture of a suitable hard pencil equal in standard to the imported pencil?
That would seem to be a separate question.
I have asked the Minister in the question which I have addressed to him if these manufacturers have been approached to provide a suitable pencil for the public service. The Minister for Finance told us last week that a hard type of pencil had to be imported. I am now asking the Minister for Industry and Commerce whether or not the Fermoy pencil factory has ever been asked to provide a pencil suitable for the requirements of the public service in order to save the importation of £800 worth of pencils, of which we have already heard today.
Buy Irish.
May I further ask the Minister to state whether it is a fact that at the present time and for some years past the Fermoy factory has been manufacturing a pencil equal in standard to the best of the imported pencils? In those circumstances, why not purchase the pencils manufactured in Fermoy?
The Deputy seems in his second supplementary question to have answered his first supplementary question.
Has the Minister satisfied himself that the hard H type pencil manufactured in Fermoy is not equal in standard to the imported pencil? I put it to the Minister that it is.
That surely is a separate question.
I am not in a position to judge the relative qualities of pencils. The specification for these pencils is a matter for the Controller of the Stationery Office. I do not know what specifications he sought in the ordering of these pencils.
Surely the Minister will not permit the Controller of the Stationery Office to purchase pencils in China, Japan, England or anywhere he likes when we have Irish-manufactured pencils equally as good as the best that can be imported?
The Deputy is enlarging the question considerably.
I have told the Deputy that Faber Castell (Ireland) Ltd. are always asked to tender and do get certain preference in the placing of orders. As the figures indicate, even as far back as the ordering of these pencils nearly two years ago, the ratio stood at about 14 to one in favour of the amount of pencils bought from the Irish firm as against imported pencils.