I move amendment No. 2:
In page 6, subsection (1), to delete line 20.
The amendment was suggested by the parliamentary draftsman on the basis that the service is adequately defined elsewhere in this subsection. To include it again would be unnecessary and would give rise to confusion.
Amendments Nos. 19, 20, 21, 23, and 38 are cognate to amendment No. 3 and amendment No. 22 is related. All may be discussed together. Is that agreed? Agreed.
I move amendment No. 3:
In page 6, subsection (1), line 36, to delete "S.I." and substitute "SI".
These amendments are not controversial. With the exception of amendment No. 22, all the amendments listed are to correct an inaccurate abbreviation. The correct abbreviation for la Syst?me Internationale d'Unités is SI, as defined by the 11th Conférence Générale des Poids et des Mésures in 1916, and not S.I.
For the information of Deputies, the Conférence Générale des Poids et des Mésures is the governing body of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures and it meets every four years. The task of the organisation is to ensure worldwide unification of physical measurements. It is responsible for establishing the fundamental standards and scales for measurement of the principal physical quantities and maintaining the international prototypes, carrying out comparisons of national and international standards, ensuring the co-ordination of corresponding measuring techniques and carrying out and co-ordinating determinations relating to the fundamental physical constants that are involved in the above mentioned activities.
Amendment No. 22 gives due recognition to the French language description of the organisation which is located in Paris by international convention. The French Government is custodian of the convention and French is the official language of the organisation. Some 48 states, including Ireland which became a member 1923, are members of the convention. Membership confers rights of access to the considerable scientific expertise within the international bureau as well as provision for comparisons of the national measurement standards with the prototypes maintained by the bureau.
It should be noted that the services of the bureau have been available to the national metrology laboratory, Forbairt, as well as the legal metrology service for some time. The activities of the bureau at present comprise measurements and metrological studies of length, mass, electricity, photometry, ionising radiations, timescales and the amount of substance. Some 40 physicists or technicians work in the bureau laboratories conducting metrological research, international comparisons or realisations of units and verification of standards. Nine specialist consultative committees assist the bureau in its work.
I move amendment No. 4:
In page 7, subsection (1), line 8, to delete "measure or number" and substitute "number or other measure".
The purpose of this amendment is to avoid a narrow interpretation being placed in the word "measure" in the existing construction. This could give an erroneous impression that only a volumetric measure was being referred to. That is not the intention. The scope of this part of the subsection is to define "trade" as referring to any measured quantity or number — for example, measure could refer to length, dimensional, volumetric, electrical or temperature measurements.
