asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will state (a) the tariff numbers of goods affected by the interim measures announced in his reply to Question No. 52 of 1st July, (b) the value of imports under each of these tariff numbers in the year 1969 and (c) the value of output in this country in 1968 and, where available, in 1969 of each of the articles mentioned in respect of which details are published in the Census of Industrial Production, or, where such information is not published, his Department's best estimate of the value of such output.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Tariff Numbers.
40.
The tariff numbers of the goods affected by the interim measures referred to by the Deputy are shown in the Imposition of Duties (No. 191) (Customs Duties and Form of Customs Tariff) Order, 1971, (Statutory Instrument No. 205 of 1971). Copies of this Instrument are in the Oireachtas Library. The number of tariff positions involved is 94.
Imports are classified by Official Import List Numbers, which do not correspond precisely with Tariff Reference headings and sub-headings. Import statistics for particular tariff references cannot therefore be readily extracted. Industrial production statistics are compiled on an industry basis by fairly broad descriptions, which again do not correspond with tariff reference numbers, so that particulars of production in the detail requested by the Deputy are not available. A further difficulty in regard to production data is that a number of the goods covered by the interim measures are the product of single-firm industries, or industries dominated by a single producer, and cannot therefore be revealed. A special examination is being carried out with a view to providing the Deputy with as much of the desired information as can be made available in the circumstances I have outlined. This will take some time to complete, but the Deputy will be furnished with the information as soon as possible.
I would agree that where it is a single-firm industry, there are problems about production figures, but can I take it that in all other cases the best estimate will be furnished, and am I right in taking it that in so far as negotiations have taken place concerning these products, the Minister must have known approximately the value produced and the value imported for the purpose of carrying on these negotiations?
It would be very much approximately, and, as I indicated in the reply, the position is that the corresponding headings do not run parallel and it is not quite a simple job of subtraction, addition and division, as the Deputy outlined last week. I have been looking quite exhaustively into this and this is why I am in a position to say that, with co-operation between my Department and the Statistics Office, we are going to try to provide the Deputy with as detailed an outlining as possible but certainly it will be necessary in relation to the single producer here to have a type of group arrangement whereby their figures cannot be specifically disclosed.
I accept that, and I take the reply to be that I can expect that in the case of certain industries, the best estimate available will be furnished in each case.