asked the Minister for Finance if he is aware that the huge importation of letterpress and lithographic printing has occasioned unprecedented unemployment in the printing and kindred trades; that the number unemployed in the letterpress (Dublin Typographical Provident Society) section has averaged one hundred and thirty per week, representing one-eighth of their total membership, for forty-four weeks ending 31st October of this year, that the unemployment in other trades affected is likewise very considerable; that the total amount of printed matter imported into the Saorstát, exclusive of newspapers, for the six months ending 30th June, 1925, amounted to 1,592 tons, valued at £174,365, being an increase of 11,781 hundredweights, valued at £46,148 over the corresponding period last year; whether as this unprecedented depression in the printing and kindred trades is directly due to the enormous amount of printed matter and manufactured stationery dumped on our shores, he will consider the advisability of taking such measures as will tend to the reduction of the huge amount of unemployment at present existing in these trades.
CEISTEANNA—QUESTIONS. ORAL ANSWERS. - UNEMPLOYED IN PRINTING TRADE.
Following on representations made recently to the Department of Industry and Commerce, an investigation is being at present made into the state of trade and employment in the printing and stationery industry.