As this is the first occasion on which I have had an opportunity of speaking formally to the new Minister of State, I congratulate him on his appointment and wish him every success and happiness while in office. I should like to have my good wishes conveyed also to his private secretary who is a neighbour of mine and whom I have known for a long time.
At the outset I should like to make a general point in regard to legislation of the type now before us. There is a good deal of very important legislation passing through the House nowadays in regard to consumer affairs in general. Many of these pieces of legislation have widespread implications for industry and for the consumer. Sometimes it is difficult while the legislation is going through to obtain the views of people whose opinions would be valuable. In this context I would ask the Minister to consider the setting up of a Committee of the House who would consider in detail this kind of legislation. While not wishing in any way to denigrate the Minister or his Department, they bring forward legislation from one particular viewpoint, a viewpoint which may be limited to some extent; whereas a Committee of the House comprising Deputies from all parties, and who would invite people from outside to come in and comment on proposals for legislation, would be playing a very worth-while role in regard to the drafting of the Bill concerned. I am thinking in terms of comments being invited from, say, representatives of the trade union movement, from the Consumers Association of Ireland and from the Confederation of Irish Industry. What I have in mind is an actual Committee Stage at this point with the Minister and his officials being present. In this way the many viewpoints expressed could be collated and examined in regard to the drafting of the Bill.
As spokesman on consumer affairs for my party I have available to me the help and advice of a number of people in relation to legislation coming before the House, but I am limited in what I can do. Despite the fact that the Minister has the backing of an extensive Department he is limited, too, in regard to foreseeing the difficulties that can arise.
I welcome the Bill in so far as it goes, but I am disappointed in that it is exactly what I thought it would be from my reading of it and from my reading of the Explanatory Memorandum. The point I am making is that the Bill deals only with quantity and that, therefore, it fails.
This Bill should have included specific sections dealing with the standard and quality of goods. It should also have included a section dealing with the description of goods. It should have included a section dealing with the contents of packaged goods. It should have included provisions about the latest date on which a person could eat foods in safety. These four items should have been included in a Bill of this nature. This Bill only deals with quantity, which is important, but it is not sufficient. The Bill should have dealt with the other items I have mentioned and I am disappointed that it does not do so.
The Minister is aware that the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards publish standards on a regular basis. But if people do not wish to accept the standards laid down by the institute they are under no obligation to do so. This is a distinct flaw and it should be remedied at the earliest possible opportunity. In the main the standards set out by the institute are reasonable and it is necessary that they should be made compulsory.
I readily admit that a Bill dealing with the quality of goods would be difficult to draft and to implement. Nevertheless it is absolutely necessary at this time to have a Bill dealing with the quality and standard of goods. The institute set out standards here in Ireland. In relation to building materials, for example, people drawing up contracts can have the materials specifically included, but in many instances people are unable to ensure that proper standards are maintained. Legislation is necessary and this Bill would have given us an ideal opportunity to draw up the necessary legislation. We are going to have to pay far more attention to the standards set by the institute. In relation to one particular item, the cords on children's anoraks, a statutory instrument was brought before the House and passed and the type of cord in question is not being used now.
This Bill should have been able to encompass a far wider variety of examples. I wonder how people are going to see that this Bill is implemented when it is passed. It deals with quantity. In some cases there may be difficulty in measuring or weighing goods. People may need to have goods examined by the institute to provide evidence in a court case, but the institute is, to all intents and purposes, closed to consumers' complaints at present. I worry over this. There is one exception and that is cases of safety. The institute take telephone calls and messages and deal with such complaints. But on listening to a radio interview sometime ago I understood from it that even in relation to safety measures alone the institute is over-extended in the work it is being asked to do. After this Bill is passed it could be three months or more before a person wishing to have a case investigated could have this done. It is good to see a Bill of this nature being passed but unless we can have cases investigated properly and thoroughly by competent people then the Bill is nothing but hot air. I appreciate the goodwill of the Minister, but goodwill is not enough. The Bill must have teeth and muscle and the people must be there to do the job.
The institute has been closed to consumers' complaints for four to six weeks and it will be closed for a number of weeks more. This is not good enough and it must be remedied. All the consumer legislation that has been passed through the House is good legislation and we are fully in agreement with it, but it is no use passing legislation if it cannot be fully implemented. I ask the Minister to bring to the attention of the Government the necessity to provide the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards with more staff to deal with complaints and more equipment to carry out examinations. I have had people telephoning me to know if I can make representations to the institute about particular items and I have done so. The institute have been very helpful and they have co-operated and have investigated complaints for me. I do not know whether they jumped the queue or not. But I was asked to make requests for people who are not in good circumstances. In one case there was a large family involved and the item concerned had cost them a sizeable amount of money. They were being driven backwards and forwards and they had nowhere to go. If legislation is going to be passed the necessary back-up services must be provided and the scope of the institute must be extended. If we do not extend the scope of the institute to deal with industrial complaints, this legislation will be of little avail because people will be unable to have their claims processed and dealt with. The Minister should bring that to the attention of the Government at the earliest possible opportunity.
Deputies Bruton and Briscoe dealt with food analysis and the calorie contents of food. Some of this information is on packets but the scope should be extended to include vitamins contained in the food and the items that went into the preparation of the product. This is essential and desirable. I recently came across a case where a farmer was using a spray. He was not aware of the power of it and on emptying it out it caused considerable damage to a small river. It is essential to set out the effects of the products.
Reference was made in the House to cases where children lost their lives after taking sprays and so on which contained poison. Some effort has been made to be more specific in the labelling of such products. However, I am not satisfied that what has been achieved up to now has been satisfactory. It is essential to state whether items are poisonous or not. More stringent precautions should be taken in regard to items imported into the country that may be poisonous. At present the notices are not comprehensive enough and are inadequate. It is essential that the contents be set out and also the results of the use or misuse of the product. An analysis of the items should be displayed on the carton and overall package.
Perhaps the Department might consider some kind of educational programme to explain to people the way in which they should dispose of products. Poisonous items are often left lying around houses or sheds. An effort will have to be made to see that such items are not left lying around because they present a danger to the person using them, their children or family. Could this be incorporated into the Bill? The Bill should try to do that because a lot of people are insured and a lot of lives are lost. People should be told to dispose of such items by putting them into their bins. As regards sprays used by the farming and industrial sectors the Government will have to take the lead in educating people on how to dispose of these items. It is all too easy to spill it out into a river. That is not good enough when one is dealing with poisonous products which can cause pollution.
As regards the weight of products, an item such as turf is very hard to weigh. I understand from fuel merchants that they are not selling fuel by weight but by the bag or in some instances by the lorry. I received a letter from a person in the St. Vincent de Paul Society who is concerned at the way in which elderly people are dealt with when purchasing turf by the bag as distinct from by weight. The letter says:
I would like to draw your attention to the sale of fuel especially turf not alone in... but all over the country. The local St. Vincent de Paul Society are very concerned about the manner in which it affects not alone the poor and needy but everyone who is in the unfortunate position not to be able able to buy this fuel by bulk.
People were not getting the number of hundredweights of turf. When this was questioned the society were informed that turf is no longer sold by weight but by bulk and the reason given was that it would be too costly on the consumer or would mean extra men being employed to weigh the fuel.
The letter went on to say that bags of turf were sold at the same price but that they varied in weight from five stone seven pounds to seven stone three pounds, including the bag. In other words, a person could buy a bag of useless white turf which will burn in a few hours, while good quality turf will last. These people are buying turf by the bag. The Minister, in co-operation with Bord na Móna and the fuel merchants, should try to ensure that turf is sold to elderly people by weight, not by the bag. In many cases these people are not getting value for money. It is important that they get quality and quantity for their money, which they are not getting. I do not see how this Bill can be of assistance in this instance but I would ask the Minister if it will remedy....
