asked the Minister for Local Government what steps have been taken to ensure that Irish manufactured materials will be used in the Ballymun Housing Scheme; whether he is aware that stoneware and pipes are being imported which are similar to goods manufactured in the State; whether he will intervene to stop this practice; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Ballymun Housing Scheme Materials.
9.
The normal requirements as to the use of Irish materials in local authority housing apply to this scheme. All stoneware, pipes and fittings on the site have been manufactured in Ireland.
I do not doubt the accuracy of the Minister's statement but will he agree the materials have not been manufactured in the State? They have been manufactured in Northern Ireland. Would the Minister say why factories in this State were not asked to quote for the materials now being imported?
Any materials of the nature referred to by the Deputy that are available in this part of Ireland are being used. It is only where they are not available that any question arises as to taking them from outside.
Is the Minister aware that some manufacturers here contend they could have manufactured the materials but the first they knew of the materials being required was when they saw materials manufactured outside on the site in Ballymun?
Obviously we cannot go around consulting and trying to find out when, how or where anybody might manufacture anything. If some of those people who observed those things had come to me or to the building agency we might have been able to do something about it. If there is anything in what the Deputy has submitted to me which needs investigation, if he lets me have the particulars, I shall have them passed on in order to see if some of the things hitherto not manufactured in this State could be manufactured here to suit our requirements in Ballymun.
Could the Minister give us an assurance that no further materials will be purchased until manufacturers within this State are first of all invited to supply them? What has happened is that people who could have produced the goods within the State were never invited to do so.
The normal method in business is that you go out looking for it, that you do not sit in a corner until somebody kicks you out. If those people have a product, that is all right. In any such case, the Irish product, the Twenty-six County product, is being used. When a product is required and it is not manufactured here, we have got to find it elsewhere.
Would the Minister bring this national duty to the notice of the foreign consortium who in the main represent the largest interest at Ballymun?
All I am saying is that if there are manufacturers here who expect their prospective customers to seek them out and ask them will they make something for them, I cannot see any great hope of its being made in the near future.
Could the Minister tell us why pressed steel baths from outside are being used instead of cast-iron baths made at home?
The baths are being supplied by an Irish company who are processing the baths in this country at the moment.
But they import the raw material as against the cast-iron product.
Where do they get the cast-iron—dig it out of the ground?