Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Friday, 9 Mar 1923

Vol. 2 No. 40

DAIL IN COMMITTEE. - MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE.

The PRESIDENT

I beg to move: "That an additional sum of £58,225 be granted for the year ending 31st March, 1923, for the salaries and expenses of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, including Umpire and Courts of Referees, contributions to the Unemployment Insurance Fund and to Special Schemes, and to the Unemployed Workers' Dependents' Fund, and payment to Associations under the Unemployment Insurance Acts."

This Department has absorbed the old British Ministry of Labour, including the Employment Department, and the main items in this Supplementary Estimate are dependent upon the Unemployment Fund, from which the weekly unemployment benefits are paid. These items are:—

(i) Additional State Contribution £16,000.

(ii) Deficit in Appropriations in Aid, £41,300.

As regards (i), the State Contribution bears a fixed ratio (.356) to the amounts realised from the sale of Unemployment Insurance Stamps. The sale of these stamps has recently shown a substantial increase owing to the resumption on the part of a number of employers and particularly Local Authorities in the payment of contributions, and the increase of such contributions automatically increases the State contribution.

As regards 2 the Insurance Act allows a sum not exceeding 12½ per cent. of the income of the Unemployment Fund to be appropriated in aid of the expenses of administering the scheme. When the original estimate was framed the amount in the Appropriations in Aid Sub-head was fixed on an estimate of the British Ministry of Labour on the income of the Fund. This estimate has proved to be very much larger than the actual income and accordingly the sum available to meet the administration expenses has had to be reduced accordingly.

Under Sub-heads CC provision is taken for £150 towards the cost of the expenses of an Irish Exhibit at the Daily Mirror Fashion Fair in London in April and May next. It is estimated that the total cost would be £1,000, of which £300 is being met by the Congested Districts Board, £400 by the Ministry of Agriculture and the balance by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, of which £150 will require to be paid in this financial year.

Under Sub-head FF, provision is included to meet half the cost subsequent to September last of the schemes for Training Unemployed Women in Home Craft Duties and for one-third of the cost of the schemes from June to September last. The balance in each case is being borne by the Central Committee on Women's Training, London.

The other two items are small in amount calling for no special comment, and are in respect of certain statutory payments hitherto falling on British Departments.

Mr. JOHNSON

I would like the Minister who is in charge of Publicity to tell us whether the Daily Mirror has paid for the advertisement it is receiving in this publication of the Irish Government, and whether there is any justification for our subsidising this particularly undesirable newspaper and assisting it to circulate right through Ireland. We know the sort of thing that they advertise in their own papers and the atmosphere they create amongst the buyers of the paper throughout this country. It may be alleged, of course, that the intention behind this is to propagate Irish ideals amongst those who attend this particular Fashion Fair, but I think the advantage is all on the other side. I certainly would like to have more information on this particular vote. As we are in Committee, I may have an opportunity of speaking again on the subject.

The PRESIDENT

This, I understand, is an exhibition that is taking place in London, in which many countries are taking part. Now, we have certain manufactures here in this country which are not as widely availed of by other peoples as the Ministry of Industry and Commerce think they might be. I am sure the Ministry, having at its disposal, in the first place, such an able Minister, and, in the second place, such a competent staff, is fairly capable of judging how far it might be possible to spread manufactures and other goods made in this country in other countries. It is a well-known axiom, I think, in business that one must advertise. There are many articles manufactured in this country which are to some extent used in other countries. One will see Donegal homespun in London very often.

Mr. DARRELL FIGGIS

And whiskey.

The PRESIDENT

Deputy Figgis says whiskey also. I am not much acquainted with that particular article of diet, but I am sure it can be well recommended, and I am sure also that Deputy Figgis has experience of its beneficial effects.

Mr. DARRELL FIGGIS

He has.

The PRESIDENT

The idea is to bring out into the open whatever we have got for sale; and unless we are prepared to take certain risks in regard to these things, and take our place and responsibilities and liabilities with the other nations, I do not think that we are going to improve our manufactures. It is certainly with a view to the business aspect of this thing that it was thought advisable we should not stay out.

Mr. JOHNSON

The Minister has rather misunderstood my point. I have no objection to a vote for advertising and encouraging the sale of Irish produce in England or elsewhere, but I think that the primary purpose of this fair is to advertise the Daily Mirror, and incidentally we are doing our bit in advertising it in the official publications of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

Mr. MILROY

I would like to ask the President if we are to infer from this that the Minister for Industry and Commerce is also the Minister for Fashions, and would it not more properly come under the control of the Minister for External Affairs?

Mr. DOYLE

Agriculture seems to be paying the heaviest end of the bill in connection with this Fashion Fair. There is £400 voted from the Ministry for Agriculture. I would like to know from the Minister how far this Fashion Fair affects agriculture in this country?

The PRESIDENT

The Minister for Agriculture was satisfied he would get value for that expenditure. It is some time ago since we had this matter up—I think a couple of months—and I regret that I have forgotten the details. I think there was mention of Irish eggs and butter and other agriculture produce that could be marketed to advantage, and would be brought immediately under notice in perhaps the most extensive and richest capital in the world.

At this stage Mr. Gerald Fitzgibbon took the Chair.

Mr. DARRELL FIGGIS

There is one item in this document that causes me a little perplexity; that is the introductory paragraph referring to the fees and expenses of the Consulting Engineer to the Government. Most of the other items, I believe, are referred to here in the Estimates that follow, but there seems to be no details given under the sub-heads or under Section 3 as to that particular item. At least I have failed to discover them. In other words, one head of expenditure is set forth, and no particulars are forthcoming under it.

The PRESIDENT

I would refer the Deputy to the Estimates for Public Services, 1922-23, Vote No. 32, which sets out the title and the amount voted.

Mr. DARRELL FIGGIS

I suggest that the Minister has not appreciated, or at least, has not answered my point. In the title here is the "supplementary estimate"; and under the supplementary estimate one is led to infer that there is a Supplementary Estimate for the fees and expenses of the Consulting Engineer to the Government. There is a Supplementary Estimate for every other item that is set out there. If it does not require a Supplementary Estimate why are those words included?

Mr. JOHNSON

I think the explanation is clear. The amount required for certain purposes is stated in paragraph 1, and this is the Supplementary Estimate of the amount required. The amount required is for the services under the Ministry, which are not detailed in the sub-section.

ACTING CHAIRMAN (Mr. FitzGibbon)

I take it that the meaning of the heading No. 1 is that it is a Supplementary Estimate of the amount required to pay all the items that are in that. That estimate is supplementary to the esti mate that the Minister for Industry and Commerce presented and passed here some time ago, and some of those sub-heads at any rate will be found in the original estimate. It is not necessary that all of them should be in the Supplementary Estimate, when the original Estimate covers all these heads. It is true that the particular heading, Consulting Engineer to the Government, does not appear in either Estimates. That is probably because the original estimate of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce was one of those skeleton estimates of which we complained at the time that it did not set out all the details that it was supposed to cover.

Mr. DARRELL FIGGIS

I am obliged for the explanation you have given——

ACTING CHAIRMAN

It was not an explanation; it was only a guess.

Mr. DARRELL FIGGIS

Supplemented by a similar explanation given by the Assistant Minister for Finance-Deputy Johnson. Still the fact remains, when one studies both estimates, one fails to discover what these fees are. Perhaps the case would be met if the Ministers were to state what these fees were.

ACTING CHAIRMAN

I am inclined to hold that as the fees and expenses of the Consulting Engineer do not appear in the Supplementary Estimates the question does not arise now. If they are anywhere at all they are in the original estimate, and ought to have been dealt with then. The Supplementary Estimate certainly does not include anything under that head.

Mr. DARRELL FIGGIS

I suggest that the Preamble does read as if there were some Supplementary Estimate required for each of these items.

ACTING CHAIRMAN

That is not the construction I put on these headings.

Mr. JOHNSON

I have to bring myself into order because I propose to move the reduction of this estimate by £100. To justify that I have to try to show that the Ministry is not satisfactorily conducting its affairs, and therefore, in support of that contention, I want to give an opportunity to the Minister or his assistant, or such other member as may be able to answer for him, to deal with the state of the Contracts Department, and state whether any improvement can be reported as to the procedure in connection with the distribution of contracts for public works, including the Army.

ACTING CHAIRMAN

There appears to be nothing included in the Supplementary Estimates for Contracts. You may move to reduce the Supplementary Estimates by any amount connected with the Supplementary Estimate itself, but not in connection with matters covered by the original Estimate that was passed.

Mr. JOHNSON

My object in seeking to reduce the Estimate is because I am considering, pending an explanation, that the Ministry is not capable of satisfactorily expending this money. I submit that that is the usual method of raising questions under a Minister's purview.

ACTING CHAIRMAN

In my opinion, it cannot be raised upon a Supplementary Estimate. That is a matter that should have been dealt with on the original Estimate by a motion, say, to reduce the salary of the Minister himself. You can move to reduce any item in the Supplementary Estimate.

Professor MAGENNIS

Does this item dealing with the training of women in home crafts cover the training of servants? Is the work of a domestic servant covered by this phrase, "training in home craft duties"? I should wish to incorporate it. I am afraid the public in the Saorstát is not aware that there are facilities at the disposal of unemployed women whereby they can become proficient in that most estimable of crafts. At the present time this is one of the great questions. Political questions occupy the arena, and public attention is so fully occupied that this other actuality is sometimes forgotten. There was a movement, as probably some Deputies know, inaugurated some two or three years ago, with a view to bringing domestic servants into a trades union, so as to secure betterment for them both as regards housing accommodation where they are employed and better wages. The reaction of that was a demand of the Employers' Union to insist upon better training being afforded to the neophytes in domestic service. Now it appears from this Supplementary Estimate that the Ministry of Trade and Commerce have set on foot this reformation to which society has been so long looking forward, and which is so eminently desirable. It is a pity that the Ministry should do good by stealth. I wish to give them an opportunity to blush on finding it fame. That is why I put the query, "Is training in home crafts intended to include training for the purpose of domestic service?" There ought to be centres for the purpose instituted in Ireland. It should not be necessary to export our raw material to undergo training in London, and I suggest that that should occupy the attention of, say, the Assistant Minister for Labour in the coming months.

Mr. JOHNSON

I wish to raise a point of order now, because it is of great importance. The motion we are discussing is that the amount required to pay salaries and expenses of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, including Umpire and Court of Referees, contributions to Unemployment Fund, and many other things in that Ministry, shall be increased—that is to say, we shall vote a sum of money greater than the amount we have already voted. These other sub-heads are merely explanatory, and they do not affect the motion. I submit it is in order, and in accordance with the practice of that place from which these Estimates and the like have been copied, that a Vote or Supplementary Estimate does give the opportunity to raise any question within the purview of that Department. The point of order is as to whether the Vote that is proposed is touching Paragraph 1. If so, I submit that it is in order for me to move a reduction of the amount by a given sum, and to explain why I desire that amount to be reduced. I do not want to press the point of order now while the Ceann Comhairle is not in the Chair, but I want to raise the point now for security in future Votes.

ACTING CHAIRMAN

I was going to say that it was unfortunate that this point should be raised when the Ceann Comhairle was absent. I gave the best ruling that I could upon the point when you raised it originally, and, of course, I have no authority here at all— I mean no official authority. I can only deal with points of order as they arise according to the best of my ability, and no ruling of mine could possibly bind the Ceann Comhairle when he comes back. I think that it would be well to raise the point again when he does come back, but, as far as I am concerned, my own opinion is that you were not entitled to go on at the time when I stopped you, upon the ground that the salary of the Minister has already been voted, and it is on the salary of the Minister that the incapacity of the Department ought to be raised, and it is only the items in the Supplementary Estimate which are before the Dáil now.

The PRESIDENT

I think that upon that point of order there is a constitutional objection——

ACTING CHAIRMAN

I have ruled it, as far as I am concerned, and all that I say is that my ruling does not bind the Ceann Comhairle, and if the point is raised again he might rule it differently. But it is not going to be discussed now—either the point of order which I have ruled or the matter that I have ruled out.

At this stage An Ceann Comhairle resumed the Chair.

Mr. J.B. WHELEHAN

I might say on behalf of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, on the point raised by Professor Magennis, as to whether this contribution towards the cost of training in house-craft contemplated the training of servants in domestic house-craft, that think provision is amply made for the training in such crafts as might be of use to these unemployed women if they did become employed ultimately as domestic servants.

Professor MAGENNIS

May the instruction be given in Irish centres as well as in London?

Mr. WHELEHAN

I do not think it is proposed under this vote for any instruction outside the Saorstát.

Professor MAGENNIS

It is stated to be in London in the Vote.

Motion put and agreed to.