I am not opposing this Bill, but if I may I would like to say a few words about the gas industry with which it deals. I have some interest in this Bill, as I am associated with some gas concerns. The matter is very important. This is one of the few industries in the country in regard to which we import practically all the raw material that we require for it. It is difficult really to appreciate that this Bill mainly deals with modifications of legislation already in existence. There are some points in connection with the Bill to which I desire to draw the attention of the Seanad, so that Senators may be better able to deal with them when they arise on the Committee Stage. We get from coal gas, tar and pitch which are now becoming increasingly important in the construction of roads, as well as sulphate of ammonia and many other things. The gas industry, in that way, gives a great deal of employment indeed. The uses to which the products of coal, and more particularly of gas, are being directed seem to me to be such that, even if gas were not used as an illuminant at all, its production would still be necessary. I think I am not far wrong in saying that the Morris-Cowley firm in England, in the manufacture of their motor cars, use up nearly half as much gas in a year as would be generated by the Shannon scheme in a year.
The Bill deals largely with gas meters and with legislation for their registration. The gas industry would give more employment than it is doing at present if the position were as it should be, that all the meters in the Free State were manufactured here. They could be made here, but I am sorry to have to say that they are not. We have here firms which could undertake their manufacture. When this Bill becomes an Act it will, I think, be enacted for the first time under legislation passed in any country that all gas meters must be reverified every ten years. In practice, meters are verified whenever a gas company thinks it is necessary to do so, that is when the registration of the amount of gas passing through the meter shows an abnormal increase or diminution. In effect, therefore, it may be said that every meter in the Free State is, on the average, and in some cases more frequently, verified at present every ten years. On the other hand, it should be said that there are cases of meters which, having been once set, have continued to register correctly for periods considerably longer than ten years. This Bill proposes to enact that the meters, whether they are right or wrong, must be verified every ten years. In the case of the larger companies that is not a very great grievance, but in the case of the smaller companies up and down the country it may be, and I think will become, a great grievance with them. It may prove as regards them a little onerous.
I feel constrained to say that, on the whole, I think the verification of the meters will work to the advantage of the gas companies, inasmuch as that when the meter goes wrong it is more than probable it is letting gas go through unregistered. That is to say, it shows an amount of registration which operates rather against the gas company than against the consumer. This is the only country, so far as I know, that has adopted the principle that arbitrarily each meter must be verified at the end of a certain period.
I would ask Senators to look closely at Section 10 of the Bill. The Bill brings in under the Gas Regulation Act of 1920 a number of the smaller undertakings, and the Minister may, by order, fix certain regulations as to the quality of the gas from the point of view of heating efficiency that will be expected from these. This provision may, and probably will, entail on those undertakings the necessity of enlarging their mains, and other modifications which will be necessitated to get at the mains, such as the breaking of the roads. I think the smaller companies are seeking to have embodied in this Bill some provision which will authorise them to break the roads. I quite recognise that in the Gas Clauses Act, passed some time, I think, about 1857, the roads dealt with under that Act and the roads that we have now are very different. A road at that time was made merely of earth and stones. Now it is really a structure, and it will not be very easy to devise means as regards breaking the roads. I think that between now and the Committee Stage the Minister should introduce some amendments with a view to meeting the smaller companies in respect to that, because if the order made by him under penalty is put into force, while at the same time these companies have not authority to get at the mains so as to carry out his order, then they must of necessity either incur the penalty specified or close down their works.
I think, in view of the importance of the industry, that it is essential that that point should be closely scrutinised between now and the Committee Stage. So far as the Bill deals with the larger companies in Dublin and Cork, I have nothing to say against it. As regards the smaller companies, which no doubt fulfil a very useful function in their own areas, we should not put anything in the Bill which would make it more difficult for them to carry on, or which would make it inevitable, in the case of people who have invested money in these concerns through the country, that they would incur heavy losses.