Amendments Nos. 1 and 2 are related and amendments Nos. 5 and 6 are consequential on them. These four amendments may, therefore, be discussed together.
Road Transport Bill, 1978: Committee and Final Stages.
Section 1 agreed to.
SECTION 2.
I move amendment No. 1:
In page 3, line 19, to delete "2.5" and substitute "4".
On Second Stage I tried to initiate a discussion on the principle of the licensing of road haulage and my contention was that it is now time to consider the abolition of licensing altogether. Clearly if one accepts the Bill in principle, as we accepted it on Second Stage, then these are two incompatible aims. I still think that is the correct course and that the abolition of licensing will be forced on us by the EEC at any rate, so in one sense we are talking unreally here. If one agrees with that, what can be done? The licensing system in this Bill should be widened and the substance of all the amendments I am putting forward is to try to widen the scope of the licensing system. Clearly the argument is a technical one — it is how far do you extend your scope?
I would like to refer to the general argument to start with because I seem to be the only Member of the House who put forward the idea that licences should be abolished. Nobody else supported this. People said that licences should not be made too restrictive, they should be wider, they should give more scope for people who already have not got licences to operate in road haulage systems. I was disappointed that the Minister did not refer to the case for retaining some sort of licence as against the case for abolishing road haulage licences altogether. I referred to the position of CIE, and certainly when the licensing system was started the argument was that we wanted to protect our own national transport system which was in a delicate position.
The industrial development of the country was at a much lower level than it is now and the whole system has changed. As far as I could gather from the Minister's reply on Second Stage, licensing is not now needed to protect CIE. There is an unanswered substantive argument as to whether there should be licensing at all and perhaps the Minister would refer to it on this section. Certain countries in the EEC have no licences and others have a less restricted licensing system than our own. One of the very telling facts against licensing that I produced on Second Stage was that in 1973, the latest year for which I was able to get figures, in cross-Border haulage the northern-based hauliers hauled three times the total tonnage that was hauled by southern-based hauliers. This was clearly due to our destrictive licensing system. If I was a haulier living in the Cathaoirleach's area I would have a handy little office just a mile or so across the Border and I would operate all my lorries and pay all my taxes up there. Only a handful of road haulage licences have been issued since the initial Act in 1933. They change hands now at a premium of £9,000 per licence and that cost is passed directly on to the consumer in higher transport charges. One of the arguments we get in every economic report is that transport costs internally are far too high, and one of the reasons clearly is the restrictive licensing system.
The Minister said in the Second Stage debate that if one accepts that there has to be licensing — I do not accept that—then the question is to decide the cut-off point. The Minister said when he was making decisions in the Bill as to the figures which I have asked in these amendments to be extended and enlarged, he was guided by expertise in other countries. It is a subjective argument and by no means a political argument. There is no division on the two sides of the House. I was the only person to make the case for the abolition of licensing. People on both sides of the House on Second Stage indicated clearly the situation as it stands, that very little attention is being paid to the law in certain parts of the country. The law is being flouted right, left and centre. Is there any point in making the sort of adjustments that the Minister is making in this Bill if people are going to continue to flout the law? What is going to be done about that? We should face up to the substantive problem and we should consider the abolition of licences.
I should like to quote from a report which the Minister and his officials will have considered in their study of the situation. It is the British Ministry of Transport Committee on Carriers' Licensing Report when there was restrictive licensing in Britain. The situation was not as restrictive as the situation here now but there was restrictive licensing. I quote from the report at page 6:
We therefore recommend:
(1) The abolition of all restrictions on the capacity of the road haulage industry and on the work for which a lorry may be used. There should be no statutory bar to entry to the hire or rewards sector of the road transport industry. Traders and manufacturers should be allowed to use their own vehicles for any work they choose to undertake, including carriage for hire or reward.
The introduction of a system of permits to ply as a carrier of goods (whether for hire or reward or on own account or both). These permits should be available on demand but held subject to good behaviour as regards all aspects of safety of lorries....
That is essentially the case which I arguded—that the only restrictions regarding road haulage should be concerned with the safety of the vehicles. We might have to have overall restrictions on size applying to all vehicles on Irish roads, but I think as far as the general argument is concerned there should be no licensing at all.
Amendments Nos. 1, 2, 5 and 6 are designed to exclude a larger class of essentially small vehicles. The original figures in section 2 of the Bill were 2.5 metric tons unladen and 6 metric tons laden weight. My amendment would be 4 metric tons unladen weight and 8 metric tons laden weight. This would exclude a much larger number of vehicles from our present licensing system and it would mean more freedom and more flexibility in the road haulage industry.
I support Senator West's amendments and in doing so I compliment him on the amount of research and the really intelligent study which he has devoted to this measure. If it were not for him it would have passed very quickly through the House without being challenged at all. With regard to the general argument for the abolition of licences I would only have one objection to that——
Is the Senator discussing the section rather than the amendment? We can dispose of the amendment and then come back to the section.
That is true. I promise not to go any wider of the mark than Senator West did. A passing reference is all I had in mind. Not just the efficiency of the vehicle but the reliability of the driver is in question when you are thinking of a code of conduct. In considering that it should be borne in mind that a very rigorously enforced code of practice and behaviour in the whole area of road transport would be worth considering. The idea involved in these amendments would be to create a better industry, to promote more strenuous competition and ultimately to rid the roads of a lot of otiose, unnecessary and inefficient vehicular traffic which we have now. These amendments would certainly lead to a greater degree of professionalism in the situation as it exists and looking forward in the long term perhaps to examining more carefully the possibility of the abolition of licences entirely.
The basic argument for the amendments put down by Senator West is that there should not be licensing of hauliers. He is looking for the total abolition of the licensing system and his substantive argument is that there is a need to have everybody get into competition with everybody else. Would he suggest that doctors should not be licensed?
A licence for safety.
Does he suggest that dentists should not be licensed or that any other section of the community should not have within themselves some safeguard for the community, not for the industry itself? I put the point that licensing is necessary. His arguments are for the abolition of licensing.
He suggests that CIE do not need protection. OK, CIE should not need protection. His other argument is that this will be forced upon us by the EEC. Nothing is going to be forced upon us by the EEC that this Government will not have a part in. It will not be forced upon us. He mentioned cross-Border haulage and that three times the volume of traffic was carried in 1973 by cross-Border hauliers in the North rather than in the South. This is a substantive argument for the Minister's position in that in the North of Ireland more of the hauliers are licensed so therefore as a percentage of the tonnage carried licensed hauliers in the North carry more than licensed hauliers in the South. I presume the Senator was not speaking of own-goods haulage when he mentioned haulage or goods hauled. I presume he referred to licensed haulage.
The safety of the vehicle is paramount. The safety of the public is also paramount. If we do not have a licensing system we will not have safety for the public or safety for the driver.
This matter which arises from the amendments has been raised by the people like the Confederation of Irish Industry. I hope that the Minister in his reply will state just what the effect of moving the limit from one level to the other would be.
A variety exists in the control systems in the other EEC countries. The only country in the EEC which has an exceptionally free system is Luxembourg and in all probability its location and its size have something to do with that. It will be accepted that qualitative licensing will always be necessary because of the responsibility of the haulier for the property which has been entrusted to his care as well as in relation to road safety.
Senator West is arguing not, as he says, for de-control but rather for quality control. This is in accordance with my own policy and is introduced for the first time in this country in section 6 of the Bill.
Contrary to the views expressed by Senator West, there is no indication whatever that the EEC will bring in the abolition of licensing controls.
I will just deal briefly with the whole question of liberalisation. There seems to be an impression that liberalisation should take the form of a radical cutback on existing controls so as to open up the industry to a variety of newcomers. This is not in line with the situation with which I have to deal. The position is that from the thirties to the early seventies licensed hauliers operated under very severe restrictions. Only now in this Bill are we getting to the first significant easement on the control of fleet sizes established 45 years ago. It is not just that the restrictions have prevented the emergence of a professional haulage industry able to keep up with the needs of our growing economy; we have, in addition, prevented existing licensees from exercising their business capabilities in full and earning commensurate awards. There is another impression of this which appears to exist—that the licensees got their licences for nothing and can now cash them in on the artificial value which is attached to certain licences. Of course this view is out of touch with reality. Numerous licensees acquired their licences at considerable expense in very recent times. For example, in the three years to the 31 December 1977 over 320, or nearly 40 per cent of the licences, have changed hands. The people who acquired these licences, took their courage in their hands and made a very substantial investment and they simply cannot have their enterprise rewarded by arbitrarily writing them off at this stage. Even in instances where licensees have held their licences from the very beginning, like every other long-held asset those licences have acquired an asset value which represents part of the investment in the business and which cannot be arbitrarily written off.
From what I have said it follows that the first phase of liberation should be liberalisation of existing licences. These are the people who have the experience and who have the talent on which to build a new haulage industry. They are the people who have borne the restrictions of the past and who are entitled to get the opportunity now and this is the first opportunity they have got to develop their business as they think fit.
The Bill attempts to create conditions in which this development can take place. The House will remember that during last week's debate some Senators felt that we should extend the exemption for light vehicles above the six metric tons laden weight proposed in the Bill and Senator West has made a specific suggestion that we should increase it to eight metric tons. I do not feel that we should. The exemption proposed in the Bill is, I think generous. It is intended to meet a particular requirement mainly in rural areas and it does not intrude to any great degree on the proper business of the professional haulage industry and I would include there CIE. It will relieve it of some obligations which it could not economically discharge and I selected a cut-off level, as I mentioned in my Second Reading speech, which is recognised for a number of exemptions throughout the European Communities. It is virtually certain that if we were to increase the cut-off as Senator West proposes we would have quite a considerable amount of interference in the licensee haulage business, and that includes CIE, and if I were to accept eight tons laden weight there is no reason why I should not accept ten tons laden weight. What we should remember is that our basic aim in this Bill is to establish a highly efficient professional haulage business. The people who are capable of doing this are the people who have, as I said previously, borne the brunt of the day in relation to this business over quite a considerable number of years under very restricted circumstances and I think that they should get the opportunity to do so. By increasing the exempted weights we would simply be encroaching on the opportunity of these people to do what we want them to do, and what they are capable of doing, and what they are getting an opportunity of doing for the first time. In those circumstances I do not see how I could accept the amendment put forward by the Senator.
I should like to take up some of the points raised by the Minister and by Senator Lanigan. I appreciate Senator Lanigan's knowledge of and interest in the road haulage business. I made it clear on Second Stage that I was not in favour of a total free-for-all approach in which there was no quality control and no safety control over the lorries on the road. Of course I am not in favour of that but that would be the only control I would argue for. We must have firmer controls, better controls and controls more efficiently administered than we have at present. That would by my argument on the problem of safety of vehicles. As I said, and I would support the finding of the Geddes Report, that should be the only restriction on road haulage. It is absolutely clear that the situation in Britain is different from this country. I do not by any means advocate that we should slavishly follow everything that Britain does and every piece of British legislation. I am always arguing against that but I think we should, and we are now in a position to do so, judge issues entirely on their merits. If the recommendation of a report in Britain happens to suit our situation then we just make up our minds and we go ahead and choose whatever is necessary here. If that particular recommendation suits us, that is the one we should choose.
I appreciate Senator Lanigan's point that anything the EEC does will not be done without the agreement of the Government in office. However, as he knows only too well, the situation is just a bit more subtle than that. One has only got to look at what is happening over the situation, say, in fisheries to realise that what the Government want is not necessarily what the EEC is going to agree on. We all know this. We cannot expect to be a member state of an organisation like the European Economic Community and to have all take and no give. One of the things that is likely to be standardised in EEC terms is the whole problem of road haulage.
The Minister has mentioned CIE and I should like to quote again from an article entitled "Freight Back on the Rails" in Business and Finance, April 1978, where it talks about the problem of CIE losing certain traffic but gearing itself up to give a more efficient service in certain areas. We all agree that that is what CIE should be doing and I quote:
While CIE believes that this may lead to the loss of certain traffic which cannot be integrated in the new system, there is considerable potential for increasing the railway share of the national unit load traffic movement. It is expected that, with the wide coverage and improved train frequencies, it will be possible to offer a service which is competitive with road over the medium to long journeys. This should result in increased business. The transfer to rail of this traffic should improve conditions on overcrowded roads particularly in the urban areas.
I certainly would support that.
Everybody knows that CIE are hoping to gain bulk traffic at one end of the scale and at the same time they are expecting to lose sundries and other smaller traffic down at the other end of the scale. That is a natural development and is one that has been supported in both Houses of the Oireachtas in the various Bills concerned with the financing of CIE.
In connection with the system of licensing which we are discussing, I should like to ask the Minister for some figures. How many road haulage licences at present have been issued by his Department and in particular how many have been issued since 1933? It is my feeling that relatively few licences have been issued since 1933. The whole situation has changed. I can see no reason for this. The Minister said that present licensees should have the opportunity to get appropriate financial reward for their work. If licences are changing hands at the current price of £9,000 they cannot be things out of which people are not making money. Somebody in the industry said they were licences to print money. If a road haulage licence costs £9,000 then people must be making lots of money out of those licences. Perhaps some of the road hauliers, because of the restrictions, are doing extremely well. Anybody who is prepared to pay out £9,000 is doing it because, even at current prices and with the present restrictions — and the present restrictions are more restrictive than the figures the Minister gives in this Bill — there is a lot of money to be made out of road haulage presently without this Bill at all. My contention is that because of the restrictive system, because of the cartel system which the licences at present are operating, which is maintained by the State, some people are making too much money. If the system was opened up and if there were no licences except for quality licences then we would have a more competitive road haulage industry and the costs all round of road transport inside the State and from the State to, say, Northern Ireland, would be lower. I would like the Minister to give the number of licences issued at present and the total number of licences which have been issued since 1933.
The number of licences issued from 1933 to 1945 was 850. These are the general merchandise licences. No new licences of that type have been issued since then but quite a number of merchandise licences other than existing carrier licences were issued, for example, for refrigerated transport and for various other types of commodities. The total number of general merchandise licences is 850.
As to the point made by the Senator in relation to the present value of the licences, it could be said that the effort and energy of the people concerned with these licences made up their businesses and really it is a transfer of a business and not a transfer of a licence. They would not otherwise be worth the money that is being paid for them. I can remember when I came into the Dáil first I found quite a large number of people who had omitted to pay the sum necessary to keep a licence alive—I think it was £1 a year —it was of such little value at that time or prior to that time. So if they have achieved a value now it is because of the effort that was put into it by the people concerned and that is why I feel we should give every opportunity to the holders of the merchandise licences plus CIE to prove themselves.
The aim of the Bill is to provide a professional, up-to-date haulage business. If we are successful in that and if we can convince a number of industries that are presently using what is generally known as own-account transport that they should transfer to licensed haulage then it would be to the advantage not just of the licensed hauliers but also of CIE. Perhaps, more important still, it will leave capital available for the development of the industry and the provision of new jobs.
I would be concerned with making any change in the Bill which would take from the opportunities which we are making available to the licensed hauliers and to CIE to develop. I believe that any increase in the unladen or laden weight granted in this Bill would have the effect of reducing the opportunities available to the licensed hauliers and in these circumstances I could not accept the amendment. I am prepared to give the licensed hauliers the opportunity which they never had until now because the vast majority of them were restricted to one vehicle per licence and we will see how that will work. Of course if it is necessary to make a change in that respect in future we can always consider doing so. As things stand at the moment I think we should not do it.
I wonder whether the Minister has any data on the number of licences at present held that come within the category of 2.5 metric tons which will be exempt in future?
To put the record straight, or in case anybody is under any misapprehension, I have an interest in the haulage business. In dealing with this Bill I must say that I would be arguing against my own interests in the sense that I am not involved in haulage but my family have been involved in own-goods haulage and are still involved in own-goods haulage. To that degree I assure Senator West that I am not speaking on a sectional basis. In a sense, I could be said to be talking against my own interests. On that basis I hope he will accept that what I have said has been totally in line with what has been presented in the Bill. I have not been dealing with the Bill on a sectional basis.
He also mentioned that the charge of £9,000 was a licence to print money. I would just ask him how much it costs to put a student through college today to get him into the situation where he can go into business? He should relate the cost of putting a student through college to the cost of a licence and there lies the kernal of the question which he has asked.
I fully accept what Senator Lanigan has said about his own interest. I did not mean that he was being sectional in any way or I certainly would not have implied it. What I did mean to indicate was that he knows something about the business because he has the experience. In a sense I was saying that his contribution would be more valuable on that account. What I would ask him — and I think he might comment on this—are the figures that we are arguing about in these amendments likely to cause people who operate own-account haulage to transfer to a licensed haulier? That is something the Minister has just said is one of the aims of these figures and is this likely to happen.
I would say yes.
I would say even more so. The situation would be better if we had a higher-lower limit for the licences. The Minister keeps on saying that if we widen the licensing system we will discriminate against decent people who have licences. What about the people who have not licences or the people who have not been able to get licences? We have been discriminating against them since 1933. I am not criticising the Minister or any political party but he says that the hauliers have, of their own effort, made something out of the Irish haulage. I am not trying to run down the hauliers at all. I think that there are many people who are doing extremely well. If the situation exists, as it has existed, and will I believe exist after this Bill, the haulage licensing set-up will be too restricted in the national interest. I do think that there has been severe discrimination on behalf of the authorities against the people who have not had licences. It has been virtually impossible to get licences in many parts of the country.
Of course, as I said on Second Stage the law is flouted right, left and centre. In some parts of the country having a plate or not having a plate does not matter at all. The Minister and his officials know this. In some parts of the country the Garda Síochána have given up the unequal struggle of trying to prosecute people who have not got licences and who are hauling goods for other people. Everybody knows that.
Some of the specific items that I have put down on amendment are to try to overcome this problem. I believe that this situation is going to pertain after the passage of this Bill. We are passing a Bill which we know in advance is going to be flouted right, left and centre. That is one of the things that worries me about this whole situation. If it was somewhat more liberal — and that is the purpose of these amendments — then a more reasonable law could be enforced and there would be some hope that public opinion would support the law. As the Minister knows, if you have a law which public opinion regards as too restrictive or as favouring one particular group of people, then the public will pay very little attention to it. The Minister knows quite well that that is the situation at the moment. I should like to think that it will not be the situation after this Bill is passed but I regret to say that the plate business, after the passage of this Bill, will be flouted in all directions in certain parts of the country as it has been flouted before.
If you were an independent observer at the back and you had to try to decide between Senators Lanigan and West as to who the haulier up front was, I am afraid there would be no need to show your decision. Senator West has submitted his amendments only for the sake of submitting amendments. With respect— and I know a wee bit about this business myself — he is quoting from journals and magazines instead of speaking about the real grassroots of the haulage business since 1933. Anybody who secured a limited licence in 1933 and has held it for 45 years, built up a business in dark and evil days when there were restrictive practices in restricted areas, when licences were issued for ten miles, 50 miles, for one county or for two counties per province. Today, they are issued for the Twenty-six Counties. These licences were for a limited type of merchandise, for itemised commodities. It was only as a result of various amendments that we got licences for general haulage for the Twenty-six Counties.
The Minister is trying to liberalise the haulage business in order to modernise it so that the hauliers will be able to compete effectively with their European counterparts, where they will have roll-on roll-off facilities with the same efficiency as continental hauliers. The Northern hauliers also take a sizeable amount of haulage business from the South. I wish to compliment the Minister for this liberalisation. The Bill was wisely scrutinised for many months. It was the result of close consultation with the people in the business. There is an old saying "There is no one for the Army but the soldier", and there is no one able to talk about the haulage business but those engaged in it. They are the people providing the service. Senator West spoke about other people being discriminated against since 1933 and I say to him that were it not for the people engaged in road haulage who kept the wheels of industry moving, our transport system would have been a failure during that time.
At present a small licensed premises in the country costs anything from £40,000 to £70,000, yet a haulage business can be bought for £5,000 to £9,000, having been built up over the last 45 years. That is not profitable unless the business can be modernised and is allowed to compete effectively with continental hauliers. It should be modernised on European lines. If our hauliers are able to modernise and compete they will be able to expand their business and provide a service not only for this country but also for the European Community.
Despite my earlier intervention, the discussion on the amendment has ranged far beyond the terms of the amendment. Perhaps the nature of the amendments and of the Bill makes this inevitable but I would inform the House that the general discussion cannot be repeated on the other amendments and sections.
I am afraid I have not the information Senator Markey sought. I am sure he will appreciate that any licensee can use whatever size of vehicle he wishes if he has a licence. After the Bill becomes law, anyone with a vehicle of that size will be entitled to operate without a licence.
If the information is not available, how was the figure of 2.5 metric tons determined in making the cut-off point where people would have to apply for a licence?
I have not got the information here but, in any case, I operated on the basis of what was happening in other EEC countries. With regard to Senator West's point where he suggested that I was discriminating against those who did not get licences, I want to make it clear that it is not a question of discrimination; it is a question of how the industry will be developed so that it will be capable of competing in the EEC. I believe that by liberalising the transport system, as set down in the Bill, we will be giving an opportunity to our hauliers for the first time to compete on equal terms. These hauliers are professionals. They have, as Senator O'Toole said, operated this business over a number of years and they did so under very restricted conditions. It was not possible for them to compete with hauliers in countries where the system was more liberal. There was a reason, in the 1933 and 1944 Acts, why it was decided against liberalisation. It was intended to see if it was possible to provide more goods for transport by CIE. We now accept that that idea was not a successful one and for that reason the first real effort at liberalisation was made in 1971 and now this Bill goes much further. The people who operated this business, including CIE, have the right to get the chance to develop which they did not have before. Any increase in the laden or unladen weights will have a detrimental effect. If all we had to do was throw the gates open for everyone to come into the industry, there would be professionals, non-professionals and in the early stages, at least, a fair amount of chaos. If we develop the industry along the lines laid down in this Bill we will achieve a professional and worth-while haulage industry.
In many ways I am quite prepared to accede to your ruling that we do not run through this particular discussion again but it is important to have it debated at one stage on Committee Stage because all the amendments are on the same line. First of all, I cannot accept Senator O'Toole's assertion that he is an independent observer over there. The only Independents are over here, along this little stretch of bench. Much as I appreciate Senator O'Toole's knowledge of the industry, there is a very powerful road haulage lobby. I do not blame them for putting their point which they will do with a great deal of force and they have every right to do so.
The argument I have been trying to put forward is that it may not be in the national interest to accept everything that the road hauliers ask for. Senator O'Toole almost asserted that this Bill was everything the road hauliers asked for. I do not believe that because I do not think any Minister would ever be in a position to accept everything one particular lobby asked for. On the other hand, in my argument I am trying to look at the question from a wider point of view. The kernal of my point is that more liberal legislation would reduce transport costs nationally.
My own opinion — and I think that Senator O'Toole and Senator Lanigan might agree with me — that any really efficient road haulier and anybody who has worked in the business since 1933 and has the professionalism, the correct equipment, well-trained drivers and a really first-class concern, will do well no matter what the legislation is governing the road haulage industry. My concern is that a restrictive legislation can protect someone who in fact is inefficient and who may not be running his lorries properly and who is not giving as good a service as could be given by someone else down the road, but the fact is that he has the licence and the other man has not. The amendments are all addressed to this. The Minister said, in reply to Senator Markey, that he has taken the position of the other EEC countries into account. Britain did have a restrictive road haulage licensing system but decided to abolish it. The British industrial position is considerably different from our industrial situation but that does not mean that this particular thought should not be in our minds.
There are perhaps people down the road who think they can do better than the Senator but who have not got a licence either.
Anybody is entitled to stand. It is interesting that Senator Lanigan should make that point because I discovered a mistake in Ted Nealon's famous book the other day. It is stated in that book that there is no restriction on those who wish to stand for a university constituency but that they be over 21 and be Irish citizens. There is a restriction on people standing for the panels. They must have certain expertise in agriculture, industry, administration or cultural education to stand in open competition.
Open competition, but so long as one is a graduate.
This is where Mr. Nealson's book is wrong. I do think there are some slight restrictions on nominated members which Senator Lanigan might tell us about but I have noticed from time to time that when one Government gets into office you get a whole different set of nominees. I wonder why that happens.
Perhaps we should let the students know about that.
I think they know about it. I still think that my amendment is right and that the high or low limit on the weight of truck which comes into the licensing system would be desirable. I would not try to undermine the CIE situation. I am not clear from what the Minister has said whether my amendment would widely affect CIE. It seems to me that they are not worried about the lower end of the trade. What they are interested in is the development of bulk transport, freight trains and so on. They would not be worried about this extension. The Minister may not notice this but I have been a supporter of CIE in every relevant Bill that has come before this House since I entered the House eight years ago. Perhaps I am the only Member of the House who does not own a motor car — maybe there is a glamorous Senator on the far side who also does not own one although she may have bought one since her increase in salary. I would accept that sections of this Bill would adversely affect the position of CIE.
I have not much more to say than what I have said already. The proposals I have put forward here are reasonable. The weights referred to in the Bill are generous. They are very much in line with what has been happening in Europe and in those circumstances I do not see any reason for making a change.
Amendment put and declared lost.
Amendment No. 2 not moved.
I move amendment No. 3:
In page 3, line 22, after "carriage of" to insert "horses,".
This is merely to widen the area where restrictions on agricultural goods at present apply regarding the carriage of animals. My original intention was to try to frame an amendment which exempted all agricultural goods from this Bill. In view of the rapid development of our agricultural industry that would be a good thing. I felt that the amendment had no chance of being accepted so I decided to settle for an amendment which would link horses with cattle, sheep or pigs in being exempt from the merchandise licensing.
I have mentioned already in my Second Reading speech that I was opposed to commodity exemptions and I explained that the exemption for cereals was proposed only for historic reasons. The exemption for cattle, sheep and pigs appears in this Bill and is simply a re-enactment of the exemption as introduced in 1971. A proposal made in 1971 to have horses included was rejected at that time. My objection to the exemption is more one of principle than of application to specific commodities but objection to commodities can be relevant. The suggestion that horses should be exempt simply because cattle, sheep and pigs are exempt is no more valid than a proposal that any other animal or, in fact, any other item should be exempted because cattle, sheep and pigs are exempt.
The transport of cattle, sheep and pigs is unique in that it relates to a highly-specialised traffic which links the farm, the marts and the food industry. It is for this reason it was exempted in 1971. I cannot see where any of the considerations here would favour the exemption of horses. As I said previously, I am opposed to commodity exemptions because if one continues along the lines of exempting various commodities one would end up where one would have practically everything exempted and that would defeat our purpose of trying to build up an efficient industry.
Reference was made by Senators on Second Stage to the exemption of seaweed and general agricultural haulage. We have had cases made to the Department, and made on previous Bills, for the exemption of fish, livestock, fertilisers, soft fruit, lime, forest timber and so on. If we are to follow this up we would simply be exempting everything and we would not be able to develop the type of haulage system that we all desire. In most instances the various matters or commodities that are suggested for exemption would result in one-way haulage only. As I mentioned in my statement in relation to own-account haulage, that would be inefficient because that is what makes own-account haulage inefficient—the haulage can only be done in one direction. This means in effect that two vehicles would be necessary to do the work of one and this has an effect not only on the haulage business but on the environment, on the roads and so on. I prefer to confine myself to the exemptions which are outlined in the Bill. To continue to exempt a variety of commodities would have the effect of hindering rather than helping the development of a professional road haulage industry.
The Minister has seemed to put forward an argument in principle which would indicate that he does not agree with the exemption of cattle, sheep or pigs. If he argues in principle the honest thing to do would be to abolish subsection (b) of this section altogether but if one accepts the principle that farm animals are exempt from the restrictions then I really think that horses should be exempt, too, as being a similar type of animal. If one accepts cattle, sheep or pigs then one should accept horses as an exempt livestock.
Amendment put and declared lost.
I move amendment No. 4:
In page 3, line 25, after "harvested" to insert "sugar beet,".
The effect of the amendment is to include sugar beet as a crop, along with wheat, oats or barley, which would be exempt in moving from the farm to the processing stage. This is one of the commodities to which no law applies at all as far as I can see. There is the widest flouting of the restrictions by plate in the sugar beet growing areas. I am certain that this will continue and it seems to me that for exactly the reasons that the Minister says — historic reasons; they were more than historic at the time they were put forward — newly-harvested wheat, oats or barley are exempt from the licensing restrictions, sugar beet, too, should be exempt.
The same arguments apply to this amendment as the arguments put forward in relation to the previous amendment. I might add here that CIE and the licensed hauliers are doing an excellent job in getting in the beet harvest and I think we should leave it to them.
I assure the Minister that CIE and the licensed hauliers are not doing enough because there are not just enough CIE and licensed hauliers around when the sugar beet all comes in together. Everybody knows that. The licensed hauliers and CIE are doing their best but their best is not good enough and that is why the law is flouted left, right and centre at the time of the sugar beet harvest. The problem of transporting sugar beet is a very considerable problem and I would agree with the Minister that CIE and the licensed hauliers are doing, their best but their best is not good enough.
I disagree with Senator West. I would suggest that if there is some backlog of materials going into the factory that the holdup is at factory level. It is not at transportation level. The materials can be got to the factory if the factory can take them but, due to a lot of other problems, when the harvest comes in at one time the problem is not one of haulage but of taking in the product at the factory end.
I am prepared to accept that as one of the problems in the beet industry but this Bill does not stretch to regulating the sugar beet industry. There are four factories taking in sugar beet, their intake is limited so that they can only take it in at certain times and the licensed part of the haulage industry cannot cope with it. Everybody knows this and everybody knows that the stuff is hauled by people without plates. That is the reason I propose that sugar beet be included in this section.
This argument does not apply to the trade of horses. There is not a great unlicensed trade of horses but there is a great unlicensed carriage of sugar beet. We know the various difficulties. It is a very bulky crop. It tends to be grown in certain parts of the country very widely and these areas have a certain number of licensed hauliers. I have grave doubts about factory restrictions. The arguments which applied when exemption was granted for wheat, oats or barley should be granted in the case of sugar beet.
The Senator will recall that when I referred to illegal haulage I mentioned that I was convinced that because of the extra capacity which we are allowing to each haulier in the future, illegal haulage would become extinct. Even if I were to accept what Senator West says about illegal haulage in relation to beet, which I am not accepting because I have not the evidence to show it. Nevertheless I think he will agree that because we are going to increase the number of vehicles per licence, the licensed haulage industry and, as I said, CIE who have been dealing pretty well with this particular aspect of the agricultural industry, will be able to do it very much better in the future.
And the same arguments will apply to wheat, oats and barley?
As I said, I am dealing there with a traditional situation.
Amendment put and declared lost.
Amendments Nos. 5 and 6 not moved.
Question proposed: "That section 2 stand part of the Bill."
I am disappointed that the fines introduced by this legislation stand at a maximum of £500 and that the forfeiture penalty has been eliminated. Seeing that under this Bill it will be easier for a person to get a haulage licence and that we have exempted altogether hauliers up to 2.5 metric tons and that the aim is to have a more efficient and professional haulage service, I would have thought it would be all the more important to penalise illegal hauliers. Anything which interferes with the obtaining of a more efficient haulage service should be heavily penalised. The maximum fine of £500 is not high enough when one considers that the maximum has been £320 for the past couple of decades. If one were to look at the fall in money values in that period the £320 would carry a par figure at present of at least £1,000. In view of the fact that the forfeiture penalty has been eliminated I would have thought that a far more excessive fine would have been proposed in the Bill. The Minister is hoping that the extension of liberalisation of the licence system will in time eliminate illegal hauliers. Then there is the problem of that. There will always be people anxious and willing to take advantage of any illegal situation and will see a fine of £500 as a minimum imposition on them, when balanced against the monetary value of haulage loads being carried. The equivalent of a fine of £500 could well be carried in the smallest corner of a present day haulage truck. It is not a deterrent, particularly in view of the elimination of the forfeiture penalty, against illegal haulage in the future. Perhaps the Minister will indicate what the opinion of the haulage association is in this regard. I would have thought they would be quite adamant that there should be very heavy fines on illegal hauliers.
As I said in the Dáil, the £500 fine is a satisfactory level. Senator Markey has mentioned the fact that forfeiture of the vehicle which was in the previous Bill was being dropped. It has been dropped because it was just pure nonsense. No justice would order the forfeiture of a vehicle worth £25,000 for a traffic offence or other type of offence for illegal haulage. It was never done nor was it ever likely to be done. It was bringing the law into disrepute to leave in a section which quite obviously would never operate. I am convinced that the development which is possible under this Bill, where each licence holder who has one vehicle on his licence will now be entitled to have six and so on, will reduce the amount of illegal haulage which went on to some extent in the past. It must be remembered that the EEC Access Directive will have some relevance to this. Those who enter the haulage business in the future, in some instances from 1 January, but also those who entered it from 1975, will have to conform to certain conditions. If people consistently break the law they may find themselves in very considerable difficulty. I could not imagine anybody spending an enormous amount of money on a vehicle simply to engage in illegal haulage in the future. It is not like some years ago when you could buy a truck for a relatively small price. Therefore, the fines proposed in the Bill are satisfactory.
I have a note here on fines which were imposed in 1978 when the forfeiture of a vehicle was provided for. These fines were £20, £10, £10-£15, £50, £20, £10, £5, £5, £10 and £20, in different cases although a considerably higher amount of fine could have been imposed.
It has just occurred to me that the figures the Minister read out for fines seem to indicate that the district justices who imposed them did not take a very serious view of breaches of the Road Haulage Acts. I would like to know from the Minister if we are going to be serious about this. Is some sort of effort to be made to crack down on illegal road haulage once this Bill has been passed and is the Minister's Department going to contact the appropriate authorities and the Garda and say "Look, now we have a liberal Road Haulage Act and we want you to really get on the tails of all illegal road hauliers, have them up in court and have them find"? Is there going to be a real move or is this legislation in a sense just not worth much more than the paper it is written on as far as fines and prosecutions are concerned?
I would suggest that the fines as they stand are reasonable because the liberalisation which has been allowed in the Bill will, as the Minister said, stop a lot of the illegal haulage which has developed. It has not developed because people were deliberately flouting the law. It was developing in areas in which there was a need for haulage of a type.
Certainly the level of fines would encourage illegal haulage.
The fines are reasonable to be extended out but possibly they should be mandatory.
Whatever the motivation behind the original penalty of the forfeiture clause, it was certainly not introduced in the existing legislation as something to be largely ignored. At the time it was introduced it was introduced quite seriously as a measure for which there was need and which would be imposed when the occasion required. The fact that it has now been withdrawn altogether would appear to be a case for a much heavier fine on conviction than is at present applicable, even in simple monetary terms. Certainly £320 in present day monetary terms would be at least £1,000.
The Minister mentioned EEC directives on safety control, quality standard, testing and so on. Whether those directives will ever penetrate down to illegal hauliers, who would find themselves in very hot water as a result of not complying with them, is something about which I have some doubt. Those directives will be aimed largely at the licensees rather than illegal hauliers.
The whole question of whether the fine is appropriate or not is mostly one of individual judgement. I do not think it is adequate as a deterrent for illegal haulage in the future and I foresee such illegal haulage continuing.
Arising from the remarks of the Minister about the rather derisory fines imposed on people who have been in breach of the Road Haulage Acts, the situation that keeps emerging from every section of this debate is that it seems there is to be no extension of licences and therefore existing hauliers are to be allowed more and more to increase their licences. The situation that exists is one where we have to admit that the law is not just being flouted but it has been admitted from the other side that a genuine void exists and this void has been filled by illegal hauliers all over the country. What is needed is a larger extension of licences to a larger number of people rather than an increase of the powers of the people who have got them.
You could almost hear the engines of the Opposition revving up at the beginning of the debate when Senator West moved his amendment. It was suggested that he was only putting down his amendments to pass the time: he was a frivolous mathematician wandering in from the shaven lawns of Trinity College among the lorries. It is reasonable that the haulage lobby should protect itself, but it should not try to run an innocent man like Senator West into the ditch. That seems to be the process that is going on today. Certainly on the next amendment, No. 6 I think a very strong point is to be made for this amendment. It is a situation where one has to fight back.
How many prosecutions have there been? Can the Minister give some indication of the number of prosecutions under the previous Road Haulage Act in the past few years?
I have not got that. I can say that I have been in touch with my colleague, the Minister for Justice, in relation to the question of enforcement. I might also add that it is not correct to say there has not been an extension of licences. In the Bill we are introducing a new type of licence which is for import-export traffic and we are granting licences in the enlarged exempted areas. Senator Martin suggested that we regarded the amendments as frivolous. We certainly do not. The fact that I do not accept the amendments is one matter——
One Senator suggested I was putting down amendments for the sake of putting them down.
Senator West is well able to defend himself. I am simply saying that the Senator has a right to put down amendments if he so wishes and it does not do much harm to have these matters discussed.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 3.
Amendments Nos. 7, 14 and 15 are related and may be discussed together.
I move amendment No. 7:
In page 4, line 10, to delete "six" and substitute "ten".
This amendment would have the effect of giving the holder of a current licence an opportunity further to increase his fleet by a factor of ten rather than of six. Again it is a matter of judgment. If this amendment were accepted it would help the licensees and I would be inclined to give them more leeway rather than less, seeing that one has accepted the fact, whether one agrees to or not, that licensing remains. I argued with Senator O'Toole on section 2 that there should not be any licensing, but section 2 has been passed. My argument is that we should extend the number of trucks per licence from six to ten. This would be in favour of the people who at present hold road hauliers' licences. The question is how far does one go in this respect. I think increasing the numbers somewhat further than the proposal the Minister has made would help to increase the efficiency of the people who currently have licences.
I disagree with Senator West because I think that he is misinterpreting the Bill. It is not multiplying the number of vehicles by six, it is multiplying the number of vehicles per licence. There can be more than one vehicle on a licence, so you multiply and you can get your multiplier up to such a degree that you will have total liberalisation, which is what the Senator was on at the beginning in his first amendment and which is what he is back to. I would suggest that six is a reasonable number and I think that within, the industry it would be considered a reasonable number. There have been problems in the past where people have been stuck with two licences and it meant that if they wanted to change from the carriage of grain to the carriage of heavy vehicles they had to buy a licence. They now have the multiplier. They can have an articulated unit, a flat bodied unit or a low loader. I think the multiplier of six per licence is reasonable.
As Senator West has said, this is a matter of judgment. My judgment is that it should be six and I spent considerable time considering this aspect of the matter. I considered the number suggested by Senator West and I decided ultimately on six. I might add that on Second Reading Senator Kilbride felt that it would endanger the small man to have a minimum of six vehicles per licence. He visualised that the small operator who could not, for some reason put on more than one or two vehicles would be uncompetitive vis-á-vis the larger firms. That is one extreme.
Senator West suggested in his proposal that the multiplier should be greater than six because six is too small. I wanted to give him an idea of the different views that there are on this matter. Generally speaking, I felt that the haulier with six vehicles or, as I said earlier, between five and ten, was in the best position from the point of view of the safest type of business. I decided that I would stick to six mainly because of the fact that on the Continent five to ten appeared to be the number. We here are in a somewhat different position from the continental situation because of our size and I felt that six would be the best number for this country. Of course it would also affect the numbers at the top, that is, I had a maximum of 80 which meant that in some instances the multiplier was less than six. If we were to have a multiplier of ten there would be too much compression; at the top figure of 80 large and medium firms would be too close and therefore I thought that six was the best and the Senator himself said it was clearly a matter of judgment.
The Minister said there are 800 licences at present. Can he tell us how many trucks these 800 licences cover? I am a little concerned about the growth that could be and perhaps the Minister could indicate whether from his representations and discussions with the hauliers' association and other interests he can tell us if it is anticipated that a considerable number of existing licensees will take up this opportunity of having six trucks per licence on the road instead of one truck per licence. I am a little concerned there might be too quick a growth in the number of haulage trucks on the roads, considering the condition the roads are in now. One certainly cannot foresee any reduction in the number of haulage trucks that will operate from Northern Ireland in and out of the Republic. One cannot in the short term contemplate any great reduction in the number of haulage trucks licensed within the Republic. I certainly do not contemplate in the short term any great reduction in the number of illegal haulage operations also in the Republic, so I am concerned about the effect on the roads and the road network generally if there is a considerable increase in the number of haulage trucks which could operate in the short term. I would be obliged if the Minister could give me first of all the number of trucks which the present 800 licences cover, whether the multiplier in the Bill is the result of his discussions with the hauliers' association or other interests, whether he thinks there will be an increase in the short term which could impose certain dangers from the point of view of the safety of the existing road network.
The number of vehicles is 1,150. I am sure Senator Markey will accept that if the previous Government's Bill were put into operation you could have as many licences as you liked. It would be a similar type problem.
Fortunately in this House we do not worry about what previous Governments did.
I was reminding the Senator in case he had forgotten. I do not think he need be concerned about rapid growth because by contrast with the North of Ireland where haulage transport was liberalised in 1967, we still have the vast majority of hauliers with only one vehicle. I do not think it is likely to grow as quickly as all that.
Has the Minister got any indication from the Licensed Hauliers' Association whether the same sort of situation could apply here?
I am satisfied that roughly similar circumstances would be likely to apply but apart from that, the figures we have show that, when liberalisation took place in the North, the total number of vehicles was reduced there. I think that was possibly for two reasons, one that perhaps in some instances there were larger vehicles. As well, there was a transfer from one-account licensed hauliers, which is our objective, and that would reduce the number of vehicles on the road as well.
I agree that the number is a matter of judgement. What will the Minister's policy be as to the issuing of new general merchandise licences? The number in this section and the number that I have proposed in the amendment, from six to ten, would be greatly affected by the issue of new licences, and if the Minister could give some indication of his policy there, then we would be in a better position to make judgment on the appropriate number of vehicles per licence.
From my experience in other countries the number six will produce an upper limit which has not been achieved, say, in Northern Ireland except in a few instances. I do not think six or ten will make all that much difference. With regard to what my policy will be, of course we are giving an opportunity here to the hauliers to develop and I will be watching very carefully how they respond to it because it is on that basis that any further consideration will be given to the issue of licences.
Presumably this means that there would not be any issuing of new licences at least for a period.
Except for merchandise licences—export-import business.
So we can take it that while the measures that this Bill contain are put into force and being examined for a period no new licences will be issued.
There have not been any for many years.
I have been against that from the start. If the proposals that the Minister makes in this Bill do not produce the desired effect then there is a chance that new licences would be issued to overcome that situation.
One can never say there will be not a time when that could occur. I am sure the Senator knows that I am somewhat restricted in the way in which these licences can be issued. We have to be satisfied that there is a need in a particular area. To date we have not found that particular need. I would hope that, with the increase which is possible under this Bill when it becomes law, the haulage industry will cater better than ever before for the business which is available for them provided they become as highly professional as I hope they will now that the restrictions under which they worked previously will have been removed.
I accept the point that there must be a need for licences, but I believe it is the situation that there is no licence in County Longford at the moment and it seems to me to be an argument for the issue, at least of one haulage licence, a general licence, in County Longford.
I have not got the statistics but I get this argument from quite a variety of areas. The fact is that you do not have to be based in a specific county to cater for the county, and between CIE and the licensed hauliers they should be able to cater for all of the areas, particularly now when many more vehicles will be possible.
Amendment by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed: "That section 3 stand part of the Bill."
There is one point on subsection (1) (a). It refers to "regulations made thereunder and to any conditions specified in the licence." I wonder would the Minister give us some indication as to what sort of conditions would be contemplated. Do the conditions relate to quality control, testing and, say, driving of such vehicles?
They relate to quality of service and conditions of employment.
Question put and agreed to.
Sections 4 and 5 agreed to.
SECTION 6.
Acting Chairman
Amendments Nos. 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 are related and may be discussed together.
I move amendment No. 8:
In subsection (3) (a), page 6, line 4, to delete "twenty" and substitute "thirty".
The purpose of these amendments is to extend the area in the shape of a circle centered at the General Post Offices in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Galway to circles of uniform radius of 30 miles, and allow free carriage of merchandise in these areas. I know that the cities differ in size, and perhaps that is the argument for the different radius which the Minister has proposed in the Bill.
Take the city of Cork, for example. The development of Cork is becoming very spread out. It has moved out along both sides of Cork harbour, east and south of the city, and if one wanted to be realistic about the industrial area in Cork which is covered by the general global term of Cork city area—the Cork industrial area—it certainly would need a radius of more than 20 miles from the principal post office, particularly if the distances are measured by road. I take it these are not distances measured as the crow files—that is a crucial point—that these are distances measured by road, and if they are distances measured by road, then 20 miles is certainly not enough for the Cork city industrial area. The Minister might clarify that for me. Are these distances measured as the crow flies, in other words on a map, or are they measured by road?
As the crow flies.
In that case the restriction would not be quite so severe, but I still think there is a case, particularly in the Dublin area, for extending the radius to 30 miles. All the principal towns in the country should be treated equally and there should be a radius of 30 miles in which there can be free unlicensed carriage.
I support Senator West. The differential between Dublin, Cork and the other provincial towns should be somewhat more than five miles. The very nature of Dublin and Cork cities should demand a bigger radius there than 20 miles.
What happened here is that these were the exempted areas. I decided that I would license the people who operated vehicles within the exempted areas, and to more or less compensate for that and to cover the point made by Senator West that we would extend the area to take in a more realistic area, I extended the various areas by five miles. I considered extending them further but I found—and the Senator will find this if he looks at a map—that if the areas are extended very much further than five miles they will be overlapping. There would be the liberalised type of system that Senator West is looking for except that it would exclude parts of Kerry and a couple of marginal areas along the west coast, but you would ultimately have a situation where everybody in the country, apart from those few places, would be entitled to have a licence as of right so that it would defeat the whole purpose of the Bill.
My main purpose is, and my reason for licensing the operators within these new areas, was that there would be a kind of pilot scheme for the testing out of quality controls, but to extend them any further than I did would simply mean that we would have the whole country included.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendments Nos. 9 to 12, inclusive, not moved.
I move amendment No. 13:
In subsection (4), page 6, line 26, after "(S.I. No. 386 of 1977)" to insert "or seeks to engage principally in merchandise transport to or from Northern Ireland".
The purpose of this amendment is to overcome or to make an attempt to overcome the imbalance in the transport figures crossing the Border which I quoted the last time. I do not have the figures I quoted, but the gist of the figures is that in 1968 the tonnage carried across Border by Northern-based hauliers was equal to the tonnage carried by Southern-based hauliers.
At that time there was a liberalisation in the Transport Acts governing the industry in Northern Ireland so there were no restrictions under the licence other than in respect of the quality of the vehicle. The situation changed so dramatically that in 1973 three times as much cross-Border tonnage was carried by hauliers based in Northern Ireland than by hauliers based in the Republic. That is a ludicrous situation. It means that the situation we are amending through this Bill should have been amended many years ago. Everybody who goes out into the roads knows that the whole country is full of trucks from Northern Ireland. Maybe they are only carrying loads in one direction, but I do not think they are; most of them get two-way loads. However they are dominating the situation in the Republic, and we should do something to give our hauliers a better opportunity. The reason for this amendment is to give an exemption to hauliers who engage principally in transport to Northern Ireland.
I have sympathy with the point made by the Senator relating to an imbalance. This is part of the reason for the Bill. We are trying to provide that our hauliers will be able to compete with Northern Ireland hauliers and with international hauliers generally. In the particular circumstance there is not very much I can do about this amendment because under the provisions of section 6 (4) of the Bill the Minister can grant licences only for operation in the new areas designated in section 6 (3) so that the holder of a new area licence will be entitled to operate only within the new area specified in the licence; that is, for example, within 20 miles of the GPO, Dublin, 20 miles of the GPO in Cork, 15 miles of the GPO in the cases of Waterford, Limerick and Galway. A licence granted under this provision would not entitle a person to go to Northern Ireland. There is no point in the amendment. The basic reason why this Bill was brought in was to give our people and opportunity to compete. They could not compete where the vast majority of them could at best put only one vehicle on the road. No matter how worthwhile, go-ahead or enthusiastic these holders of merchandise licences might be, they had not the opportunity of developing as they would like. If he had only one vehicle per licence he could not develop his business without a very considerable input of capital. In this Bill we are giving them an opportunity of providing more vehicles. As soon as our hauliers begin to make use of the facilities available to them under the Bill, we will find that they are capable of competing with Northern Ireland hauliers. The vehicles which are licensed in the new areas can operate only within the new areas.
As the Minister suggests I had some difficulty in framing the amendment and it does not quite fit this section. To do what I wanted to do in a more radical way would have required a new Bill. I will withdraw the amendment if the Minister will guarantee to do something for the road hauliers, that is to make some moves to speed-up customs clearance. The Minister must know about the mess at customs clearance because it is on his back doorstep. I am sure the Minister would be willing to consult with his colleagues in the Department of Finance, Customs and Excise, Revenue, or whoever are responsible for that frightful bungling in Dundalk. All the road hauliers here would be delighted to find a streamlined approach to the clearance of goods through the customs of Dundalk.
The Senator does not have to push the Minister on that. I have announced some time ago that we are building a new customs area to try to achieve what the Senator is anxious to have, that is, a better flow of traffic.
It will require more than the building of a new customs area in Dundalk. It will require some amendments to customs regulations and some speeding up of the operation of these excise regulations in Dundalk. It would greatly facilitate the haulage industry here if one did not have to spend three days trying to come or go from Northern Ireland.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Section 6 agreed to.
Section 7 agreed to.
SECTION 8.
Amendments Nos. 14 and 15 not moved.
Section 8 agreed to.
Sections 9 to 11, inclusive, agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported without amendment, received for final consideration and passed.