I move:—
That the Seanad is of opinion that the regulations in regard to petrol rationing should be more strictly enforced and that distribution should be restricted as far as possible to the requirements of essential services.
At the outset, I should like to give the House one or two figures which may be of value in getting a clear understanding of the position of motor traffic in this country and the supplies we have available. A good many Senators will probably know that there are three figures of importance. The first one is that up to the end of last year, 1940, our income from motor taxation was £915,000, a very considerable part of our revenue. It had fallen to that figure from something over £1,000,000 previously. Motor vehicles at the end of 1939, which is the latest date for which I have got definite figures, were divided as between private cars, 52,000; commercial vehicles, 10,000 odd, and tractors, 1,200. I understand that the number of private cars has fallen very considerably since, and that the number of commercial vehicles and of buses has increased. The number of tractors has also gone up. The third point is that we have been promised a total quantity of 20,000,000 gallons of petrol per annum, but in actual fact the whole of that quantity of petrol has not reached this country for the past year.
I put down this motion because I feel that we have for the past year not only been condoning some very flagrant breaches of the law but we have been wasting a commodity, the enormous importance of which to the whole of our industrial and economic life, we do not yet seem to have sufficiently grasped. We have got no emergency reserve. We are living by the assistance of our neighbours, hand to mouth, and we are living with the assistance of people who themselves are rationed and who have very important preoccupations, preoccupations which appear to be getting daily more serious. Before I put down this motion I read the report of the debate in the Dáil very carefully. The motion proposed there asked for a commission. I have approached the matter on rather different lines. I agree with the Minister's outlook as indicated in his reply to that debate, but I felt that discussion here might be also useful. I felt that when I put down the motion and I have been immensely fortified in putting it down by the number of people in every walk of life who, when they heard I intended to bring forward such a motion, wrote to me to say: "For goodness sake do not do it."
The proposer of the motion in the Dáil made the point that the rationing scheme had not been conceived so as to give an adequate amount of petrol to essential services and that a black market was naturally the result of that. The Minister in his reply did not deny the existence of a black market. He agreed that it was there. He said that it was possible to devise other means of distribution but he concluded by saying that in his view a ration based on the horse-power of cars with a supplementary allowance for certain people who wanted more, was the best system of distributing petrol. That is the system he has adhered to from the beginning. He then gave the Dáil some broad figures to indicate what the situation had been and what it is at the present time.
The Minister went into detail over the month of September last. Well that month serves pretty well as an example for the remainder. The figures he gave were, private cars, 143,000 gallons; commercial vehicles, 400,000 gallons; hackneys and that type, 139,000 gallons; Government services, 41,000 gallons; rail and bus companies, 184,000 gallons; industry and agriculture, 70,000 gallons, and two types of supplementaries which I have added made another 65,000 gallons. That gave the total figure of 1,086,000 gallons in that month. I think when the Minister gave these figures—I am not quite clear about it from reading it—he had before giving them subtracted the 1,000,000 given to the Army and the wastage which occurs. Whether that is correct or not I do not know. Well neither speaker in the end made any really constructive suggestion for improving the situation which a very great number of people in the country, to say the least of it. regard as being unfortunate. We started with a very simple, easy, cut and dried plan. That has gone on without any variation in spite of the experience which has been gained since its inception. Now this motion infers that there is an illegal traffic in coupons which are issued to specific individuals for definite purposes and if that inference is correct it means that petrol is being given to people who do not require it at the expense of those who do. That is really an extremely wasteful procedure and I am asking the House to say that steps should be taken to put the whole position on a better basis than it is at the present time.
I do not propose to take up the time of the House with specific instances. Anybody can put up cases—doctors, racing people. If one started raméis on those lines it would go on for ever. All of us to be quite fair know of professional types and concerns which are not getting sufficient petrol for their requirements. What I would like to do is to try to direct some of the spare petrol to these people who are serving the public and who now have to supplement their supplementaries by illegal means in order to do so. I am not such an optimist as to think that a position like this can be cured entirely, but I say this: if the thing is really tackled it may be made at any-rate less immoral than it is at the present time. Up to the present you may say that a petrol coupon has been a Government cheque for a specific quantity of the commodity for any car in any place, and I feel sure it was not the original intention that this should be so. I believe that if steps were taken really to enforce the law over and above the recent order which has come out, then the Minister would have a surplus which he could use for reserve or other purposes. I took some trouble in examining and working out the machinery which was required to get some way out of this. But I do not propose to go into the details. I will only mention two main things, and that is that coupons with counterfoils should be perforated not with the registration but the engine number of the car before being issued at Ballsbridge, and, secondly, that retailers should be forced to enter certain details in books for inspection. There are other very important details which I do not propose to raise here. I think that if that happened you would not have what has been going on up to the present, that is to say, a two-gallon coupon for a seven horse-power car in Donegal being cashed in Cork for a 30 horse-power car. If locomotion were restricted there would not be the same desire and wish to pay 5/- to 10/- for coupons. There are no doubt many ways of getting over any rule which is made, but there is also a very large number of ways of putting on the screw.
I feel that if the Minister asked the Gárda and the detective force really to take the matter seriously they would clear up this without very much trouble. That brings me to the second part of my motion. At the moment we are entirely dependent on two countries for our motor spirit, Great Britain and the United States of America, which are the only countries which can bring it to us. I feel that our position under present circumstances lays on us a humanitarian obligation to ensure as far as we possibly can the lives of seamen are not risked in bringing petrol for other than what you may call essential purposes. I use the word "essential" in a wide sense of the word but I feel that certain types of things should be restricted. Most of us remember when we managed to do at different times of our lives without motors at all. There is no great competition now and it seems to me hardly necessary that people should be able to hire cars for long journeys over this country. I have particulars of such being done almost every day. A great many of these journeys are made and they are no contribution whatever to our national necessity or national economy. I suggest, therefore, that the Minister should limit this type of locomotion and direct the petrol, say, into the more deserving tanks, those of the business and professional people, and keep the locomotion local instead of universal, as I said before, throughout the country.
Finally, a word as to the practicability of devising means of improving the present method of distribution to the advantage of those who are not at present able to work to full capacity. Would it not be possible to delegate the examination of all applications for petrol to the county council authorities and the chief superintendents of the Gárda Síochána? I feel that they have a very much more intimate knowledge of the circumstances of every one of the motor-car owners in their districts. The Minister would allot to each of these divisions, say, three-quarters of his available petrol. He would start by keeping one-quarter in reserve and, having done that, he would allot it in proportion to the number of vehicles, private cars, machines and industrial plant in each district. I intend that he should adhere to the basic ration. That would remain the keystone of the whole system but I think I should also ask him to lay down the general lines on which distribution should be made. I think there should be a definite division between the private car which is used partly for pleasure and partly for business and the private car which the Gárdaí and the county authorities would say was used purely for private pleasure. I think in that way you would start to increase the amount of petrol available for supplementaries and put it in the right place.
The Minister said in the Dáil that this would lead to a lot of criticism and that he felt to allow that criticism at all would be wrong and unfortunate. I cannot agree with him on that. I know that there would be all these different accusations of political and other favouritism, of loss of employment, loss of revenue, that people, in theory, would shut up their cars—in practice I do not think they would— that officials had too much to do and the Gárdaí would have too much to do. All these things would be poured out, but I think they would very soon die and I feel that it is the duty of the Government to stand up to these things, not only to stand up to them, but I think it is their duty to put down abuses such as those to which I have attempted to draw attention. I think that the public services which are still short of petrol and which require it should get it. Finally, I think there should be, in the very serious circumstances that exist, more forethought for the future. I do not want to repeat the words of the Minister, but he said he was working from hand to mouth and is giving out everything he can get and creating no reserve.
