The Parliamentary Secretary in his reply to the discussion gave us the details of the sales by company stations on the one hand showing a drop of 7,000,000 gallons in sales from 1973 to 1974 and a corresponding increase of roughly 7,000,000 gallons by the independents. It would appear that sales of petrol in 1973 and 1974 were exactly the same. The independents sold 7,000,000 gallons more, the company stations sold 7,000,000 gallons less. He did say that the examiner of restrictive practices was keeping a close eye on this trend and if there was any reversal of the figure the examiner would take action. I wonder what sort of action the examiner can take if there is a reversal because we have the situation as far as I can see that we are making an order for a three-year period. I take it from our discussion that for this particular part of Industry and Commerce the Parliamentary Secretary is operating the delegated powers here. I cannot understand what sort of positive action the examiner or the Parliamentary Secretary can take if there is a reversal of that position.
Restrictive Practices (Confirmation of Order) Bill, 1975: Committee and Final Stages.
If it appears that the order is not effective and is not achieving the objective sought—which is unlikely—then the examiner could examine the situation and make a recommendation. If he finds that certain remedial action could be taken, the commission could examine it and in turn make a recommendation to the Minister.
I find it difficult——
The examiner could not take action that would actually stop it. He would require an order.
I am just wondering what was at the back of that statement. In the very same way the Parliamentary Secretary said that if things were not working out he would look at the order again if necessary. The order will be applicable for three years. I accept that being so. He does build in that if a new competition were to develop, if a new company arrived, he would look at that new situation. That is a problem which I had to contend with three years ago because the same possibility was stressed at that stage that some new person could come in. Despite that, I felt at the time that it was a good thing to make the order on the recommendation of the Restrictive Practices Commission and I have no reason to believe that the Restrictive Practices Commission are not right in this instance.
I have not had the opportunity in the short time since we started of looking through the recommendations of the Restrictive Practices Commission. I cannot see why there should be this insistence upon the extension of three miles. We will let that go because it is in the order but the Parliamentary Secretary, in reply to a query by Deputy Power, made reference to article 5.
It is not referred to in his speech —naturally. There is no amendment to it. It is article 5 of the principal order. I placed a lot of reliance on article 5 and hoped at the time to use article 5 to deal with the type of complaints that were flooding in from the people I spoke about on Second Stage—the managers or company owners, the people who were running company-owned stations. Deputy Fitzgerald referred to figures and the falling off in the number of independents. Economically they are being pushed out solely because of the failure to achieve a certain turnover of petrol. There is no doubt that we have the situation whereby a number of the companies have refused orders to the old one-man filling stations that could accommodate only 1,000 gallons of petrol. Those people are being squeezed out. I had hoped at the time of making that order to be able to look at those complaints as against article 5 of the order. There should be no differentiation in the treatment given to one dealer as against another. We had the agreement and the question of the tie-in and the arrangements.
Deputy Callanan spoke about peculiarities that existed at the time when petrol was short and the conclusion— and certainly it was a logical one— that the station most likely to have petrol at that time was the company-owned station. I am just wondering if article 5 of the order was specifically adhered to and whether the Parliamentary Secretary and his Department have any way of ensuring that this is so.
In article 3 of the new order of 17th June, 1975, he substitutes six miles for three miles in paragraph (1) of the original order and substitutes three miles for one mile in paragraph (3) (b) of article 3 and substitutes three miles for one mile in paragraph (4) (c) Peculiarly enough, in the table there is a further amendment and I cannot understand why the amendment covered in (d) of the table was not incorporated in the amendment in paragraph 3. I know I am being ambiguous in the way I am presenting it. If we could tease it out I would be very pleased. There is a change of three miles in the table that is not included in paragraph 3 of the order and I cannot understand the reason.
The Parliamentary Secretary did not make any comment on the representations I made in regard to private petrol stations having small tanks. There is a bias towards regular customers. Like myself, motorists tend to call at stations where they are accustomed to getting their supply. If companies want to bring custom to their own station—there may be a slowness in delivery to other stations. Will this order ensure that people will not have to be telephoning for deliveries and be out of petrol often?
This order does not cover it.
I can assure the Parliamentary Secretary that complaints have been made and that people with small tanks are out of petrol and so are the ordinary road users. A motorist might want to give custom to a man but if he has not got petrol at all times and if the company owned station has it, obviously it will get the custom. They have power to change the trend which the Parliamentary Secretary has referred to by using discretion about the distribution of petrol. If the small station has not got petrol at all times the customers will cease to call.
I wholly agree with what the Deputy has said and if he can furnish me with instances where this happens I will refer them to the examiner to have them investigated.
The Parliamentary Secretary said this order did not cover the complaint but it does. Article 5 does.
Article 5 is not before the House. It is not the original order. It is an extension of the Bill.
When amending an order the order must be before the House.
The original order itself is not before the House. Article 3 is before the House. I am not trying to restrict the debate.
It would appear to me, even by what the Parliamentary Secretary said, that developments have taken place in petrol sales and petrol sales outlets since 1972, when this order was first introduced by Deputy Lalor, at a period when problems did exist. Problems have grown because of the oil situation and they have grown for petrol retailers since then. The point made by Deputy Callanan is a common one in rural areas. It illustrates more clearly what I said earlier with regard to the means available to the multi-national companies to use their own type of restrictive practices, that they have many ways of saying they are not restrictive practices but they are getting around it. This is why I am critical of the Parliamentary Secretary and his Minister that further steps have not been taken in this regard.
I also want to ask whether or not we can expect the promised legislation controlling the franchise on trading stamps and the operation of trading stamps generally. I think there is a tie between them. If I may, with the Ceann Comhairle's permission, quote figures from the National Prices Report, the average throughput of the 106 company managed stations is 236.2 thousand gallons. In the case of the tenants of those companies, of which there are 387, the throughput is 139.9 thousand gallons. Yet in the case of the 3,841 independent stations the throughput is only 37.3 thousand gallons. This of course, means that there are very many independent stations that are absolutely uneconomic.
I do not expect the Parliamentary Secretary to be instrumental in making them economic. There are things that I would expect him to do; there are very many things that are considered impossible also and there is no point in saying that all these can be made economic. First of all, the companies have prime sites. For the most part, as can be seen from the table, they are in urban or semi-urban areas, suburban as well. This applies both in the case of the tenants and in the case of the company operated by management. For the other part there are the independents.
We must be more concerned about it. There should be something in addition to this measure which is only a continuation of something that was introduced in 1972, in the circumstances that operated at that time. In view of the developments over three years, has the Department any further legislation being prepared or ready to introduce just to prove that the Government are concerned about people, to prove that they are concerned about the impossible position of the independent? The independent has a problem in the area mentioned by Deputy Callanan, just as he has as an independent competing against the power and strength of a companyoperated station in an urban area.
Could I intervene for a moment? I should like to point out that this is obviously a very urgent piece of legislation?
We have from 6 to 7.00.
There is another Bill.
Can we have an assurance that there will be further legislation to follow on the point I have made? Is it being prepared?
The situation is that a complaint has been made that oil companies may propose in some cases to discontinue to supply certain small uneconomic stations. But the oil company when these complaints were brought forward by the Department has given an assurance that in any case where it is proposed to terminate supplies the Examiner of Restrictive Practices will be given an opportunity of making a full examination in each case before a final decision is made. I should say that we are here dealing with section 3 only of the original order because it alone was the one which required to be renewed after three years.
Section 5 and section 4 which Deputy Lalor referred to are not strictly speaking relevant to this debate in so far as they are in being anyway and are not being renewed on this occasion. They did not require to be renewed at this stage.
They are renewed.
In relation to Deputy Fitzgerald's point about prime stations, the situation is that in the years between 1972 and 1974 the share of business going through independent dealers has increased while the share of business going through companyowned stations has decreased. That is a trend that is continuing. If, as Deputy Fitzgerald says, the companyowned stations acquired prime sites and so forth and so on they acquired them prior to 1972 and if the 1972 order was not brought in in time that may be the reason for those companies having those prime sites but since then, I am glad to say, the trend which Deputy Fitzgerald rightly expressed concern about is being reversed and I have given the undertaking that we will try to ensure that that will continue.
Are we having further legislation on the trading stamp situation?
Yes.