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Special Committee Factories Bill, 1954 debate -
Thursday, 3 Feb 1955

SECTION 54.

I move amendment No. 39:—

To add to the section a new sub-section as follows:—

(2) The Minister may, by regulations, prescribe a standard of suitable facilities for sitting for factories or any class or description of factory or parts thereof, or for any process.

Deputy Larkin has tabled amendment 40 to this section. Deputy Larkin's amendment—that is, amendment 40—reads as follows:—

To add to the section a new sub-section as follows:—

(2) The Minister may, by regulations, prescribe, either generally or as respects any class or description of factory or as respects the class of persons employed on any process the number of seats to be provided in proportion to the number of persons employed and also the type of seats.

I am prepared to have power given to the Minister by regulation to prescribe a standard of suitable facilities for seating and I have tabled an amendment of my own—that is, amendment 39—to that effect. In my view, it is wrong to talk of providing seats in proportion to the number of persons employed. The number of seats to be provided by the owner of a factory has nothing to do with the number of persons employed in it. What determines the number of seats is the number of occupations in which the workers can do a substantial proportion of their work while sitting. If, for example, the work of all the employees can properly be done by them while they are sitting down then the owner would have to provide seats for all the workers and not just for a proportion of the workers. For these reasons, there is a deficiency in Deputy Larkin's amendment and I feel it is better to deal with the matter on the lines of the amendment which I have just moved.

With all due respect to the parliamentary draftsman, I think my amendment in this case is better. My amendment provides that the Minister may, by regulations, prescribe either generally or as respects any class or description of factory or as respects the class of persons employed on any process the number of seats to be provided in proportion to the number of persons to be employed and also the type of seats. The proportion of seats to persons employed is the proportion of persons employed under the particular process and not in the factory as a whole. However, so long as the Minister has an amendment which gives him the necessary powers, I shall not move amendment No. 40.

The words in my amendment, ". . . or parts thereof,. . ." would cover what you describe as " process ".

Amendment No. 39 agreed to.
Amendment No. 40 not moved.
Section 54, as amended, agreed to.
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