Skip to main content
Normal View

Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 25 Apr 1934

Vol. 18 No. 16

Sheepskin (Control of Export) Bill, 1934—Report and Fifth Stages.

I beg to move:—

Section 2, sub-section (2). To insert before the sub-section a new sub-section as follows:—

(2) Every order made under this section shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas as soon as may be after it is made, and, if a resolution annulling such order is passed by either such House at any time during the continuance of such order, such order shall be annulled accordingly, but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done under such order.

On the Committee Stage we postponed the consideration of this amendment in order to give the Minister an opportunity of considering the application of this amendment to the Bill, and also to give the Minister an opportunity of providing amendments that might satisfy the Seanad in regard to this Bill as it stood. But nothing has been done. Therefore, I am forced to move now the original amendment brought up in Committee Stage. At that time the Minister said the whole purpose of this Bill was an order and if the Seanad had power to revoke that order it might revoke the Bill. I do not agree with the Minister in that statement because if we revoked one order the Minister would have power to make another. The Minister himself takes power to revoke any order he makes under this Bill. Consequently, I cannot see what great hardship there could be in the mind of the Minister in regard to this matter. I cannot see any hardship, where if any great injustice is done, or the purchasers who buy the sheep under the operations of this Bill do not pay the price they get from the fellmongers, in having a resolution passed to revoke the order and to let sheepskins again be exported. There have been a number of Bills passed in the last year and a half and two years. Under many of these Bills the Minister has power to make orders. I challenge him to cite any case in which the Seanad sought to revoke orders made by the Minister, or to hamper his legislation in any way. Why he is so anxious to get this thing and to work it by order I cannot follow. The whole tendency of the present Government is to legislate by order, it is a tendency, also, growing up in other countries. I think it is time that the Seanad sets its face against such legislation. All such legislation should have some safeguard. This Bill is an example of what may be called departmental legislation. Under Section 2 the Minister may by order prohibit

"the export of sheepskins otherwise than under and in accordance with a licence in that behalf issued under this Act, and may so prohibit such export either for so long as such order is in force or for a specified period or for two or more specified discontinuous periods."

There is obvious danger in this type of legislation, which is growing so much in England that a book about it was written by the Lord Chief Justice. One certain safeguard would be the insertion of such an amendment as I have now moved providing that every order made by the Minister shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas. By the adoption of my amendment some sort of parliamentary control will be maintained. I contend that the Seanad should certainly endeavour to maintain such control.

I support the amendment. This Bill, in my opinion, is very much more serious than it appears to be. It restrains the market of the sheep farmers and it puts the entire control of the price for sheepskins into the Minister's hands. It opens up a possibility of unfair discrimination in granting a licence. In that respect it is on all fours with other legislation of that nature. He does all this for the benefit of three or four fellmongers, as I understood from the Minister on the previous occasion, who cannot afford to pay the current price for sheepskins. It is done at the cost of depriving tens of thousands of farmers of a free market, and done after the Government has spoiled their markets for a great many things by plunging the country into this tariff war, the effects of which we all know. Why not subsidise the fellmongers? Why not do the thing openly? I dislike subsidies very much but it would be a much more honest way of helping them than this method. The cost to the country would be known, whereas by this method it is all hidden in fog, in a smoke-screen. We cannot tell what it will cost. I think for these reasons the principle of the Bill is a bad one. I do not think we really should have given a Second Reading to the Bill. However, we did so, and having done so, it is quite reasonable on our part to adopt this amendment, so that there shall be some check, at all events, on the Minister, either the present Minister or any Minister who may follow him, to prevent a misuse of these powers.

I think the Bill would be better without this amendment for the reasons I stated on the Committee Stage. I do not think this amendment is any check, and if it is desired to have a check, I do not think it is by such an amendment it can best be secured. Provision is made in the Bill that it shall come into operation by order. It shall be brought into operation by order because obviously that is the simplest method. If the Bill were framed on any other lines it would presumably become law, and the regulation of the export of sheepskins would be in operation this weekend. We are not ready to deal with the matter by the time the Bill becomes law. It will be necessary to set up machinery to carry out the functions under the Bill and the order bringing the Bill into operation will not be made until the machinery is in existence. That is why it is provided that it shall be brought into operation by order and not automatically on the passage of the Bill. I do not think this amendment improves the Bill. I do not think it effects any real safeguard against possible abuse, nor do I think that the Bill in any way influences the price of fat sheep in the Saorstát. However, if there is anybody of opinion in the Seanad which thinks that this amendment should go into the Bill, I am not disposed to fight the matter.

Amendment put and declared carried.
Question—"That the Bill be received for final consideration"—put and agreed to.
Question—"That the Bill do now pass"—put and agreed to.
Top
Share