asked the Taoiseach the number of catering workers permanently employed throughout the State for each of the years 1964 to 1966 inclusive.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Catering Workers.
2.
The data requested by the Deputy are not available. However, the results contained in Volume III of the Census of Population, 1966, which it is anticipated will be published in the first half of 1968, will give information on the total number of gainfully occupied persons at work in restaurants and cafés in April, 1966.
Catering establishments are also being covered in the Census of Distribution and Services, 1966, and the results of this inquiry will also yield information on employment. First results of this inquiry should be available in the latter half of 1968.
Can the Parliamentary Secretary tell us why the data requested are not available, having regard to the importance of this type of worker to the nation's economy?
It is just that they are not available. When they are available, they can be obtained by the Deputy.
I am asking the Parliamentary Secretary can he tell us why they are not available?
Because they are not. It takes some time to compile that information, to analyse it and set it out, as the Deputy knows. The results obtained from the last census have not yet been completed.
Surely the Parliamentary Secretary is not suggesting that this Department should wait to be asked about figures in connection with this matter. He has said the data are not available. Is he suggesting that it is only when the information is requested that it is accumulated?
No. That work is proceeding all the time in the Central Statistics Office, as the Deputy knows. When it is available, it will be published and can be readily obtained by any Deputy or any person who seeks it. I could give the figures for 1961, if that is any good to the Deputy.
The Parliamentary Secretary has not got them for 1964?
The latest figures I can give are for 1961.
Heaven help us!
There is no trade union labour employed in that office making out results.
What office?
That does not surprise us. You were always for cheap labour.
(Interruptions.)
Question No. 3.