On a point of privilege. Deputy Briscoe has made a statement with regard to certain items of information which he believed he had got from the Controller of the Stationery Office. He stated that the information had been recently given, and when he was challenged by another Deputy it emerged that it had been given before a particular Committee. There may be something more in this than meets the eye. What was that Committee, and what was the date of it?
IN COMMITTEE ON FINANCE. - QUESTION OF PRIVILEGE.
The Public Accounts Committee.
Of this year?
Of 1925-6.
Is it the published report of the Public Accounts Committee of 1925?
The Report is published already.
It is the published report of 1925-6?
I have received a published copy of it. The Minister, to a certain extent, possibly, is correct in stating that this is in connection with the Committee of Public Accounts, of which copies of the evidence taken have already been published. I do admit that the copies I have received are confidential, but, at the same time, I wish to draw attention to the fact that while this Committee of Public Accounts is sitting the appointment of Deputy Davin as Chairman of that Committee was made public and was not considered as any secret. The fact remains that in this debate I felt quite in order in stating what I did to show clearly with regard to the matter under debate that the Executive Council were not reflecting a proper atmosphere in their Departments in allowing industries to be closed down that could keep Irishmen in this country.
This is a matter of privilege. The Deputy has admitted that he has quoted from the proof of the evidence which is marked confidential—that is what it comes to.
Which will eventually be published.
I thought Deputy Briscoe's first answer was that he quoted from the published report of the Committee for 1925/26.
It is the Public Accounts Committee sitting on work that should have been finished some time back.
Of which the Deputy is a member.
I misunderstood the Deputy. Was he quoting from the proceedings of the Public Accounts Committee which is actually now sitting, and of which he is a member?
Yes.
That is a most improper proceeding—that is quite out of order, because when the Public Accounts Committee meets, its proceedings are circulated only to members and to the proper officers of the House, and are confidential until the Committee reaches the point at which it makes a report. It makes that report to the House, and an order is made for the report and the minutes of evidence to be printed. When they have been printed, then, of course, they become public documents, like all documents laid on the Table. But in the interval I think it would be quite wrong, and contrary to the spirit of the whole work of the Public Accounts Committee, to quote from them. I am sure the Deputy did not appreciate that.
If I have committed an indiscretion in quoting that particular item of that particular Committee, I beg to apologise to the House, and I assure you that I had no intention of divulging anything of the administration of the department which would have any effect upon its administration.
That is quite satisfactory.
I wish to apologise.
I should like to carry it a little further. I am not at all failing to accept what the Deputy has said, but the Deputy has, in fact, made a wrong quotation. The Deputy has given what is incorrect evidence. I do not know whether it is published wrongly or not, because I have not seen the proof, but I do know that the facts are contrary to what the Deputy said. Am I at liberty to disclose the true facts to-morrow in answer to what Deputy Briscoe said?
I am under the disadvantage of not having heard what Deputy Briscoe said. If the Deputy made a statement relevant to the tariff debate, and the Minister has what he conceives to be the correct statement, of course he can give it. There is no doubt about that. I think Deputy Briscoe's statement in connection with the matter is quite satisfactory, and settles the point of privilege.
Arising out of some reference made here to an application now before the Tariff Commission on behalf of the vehicle builders of the Free State, I would like to draw the attention of the Minister for Industry and Commerce to the situation created by the operation of Section 3 of the Railways Road Motor Service Act. As the Minister is possibly aware in virtue of that Act the railway companies after Saturday next cannot operate or give financial support to other concerns in operating certain bus services on the roads. The Act also provides that the Minister should notify other interests operating services on the same roads that on a certain day he will consider the application from the railway companies for permission to continue the operation. The effect of that has been this: that in order to establish a claim to operate buses on certain routes, the private interests which hitherto have been competing with the railway companies have amalgamated and we understand they are preparing to dump in here an enormous number of buses in order to substantiate their claim to put them on these routes and to work them. The railway companies are retaliating in like measure and one can see that the effect of the conditions precipitated by this inquiry which is to be held on Saturday next is that even if the vehicle builders do succeed in their application and do secure a tariff that operation of that tariff at the earlier stages, and the benefits that would be derived from that tariff at the earlier period, will be nullified. What I am at this stage going to suggest to the Minister is whether he will take the facts as I have stated them into consideration, and decide—I am not certain what his powers are and what the powers of the Tariff Commission may be in the matter, but the situation I suggest, is serious enough almost for him to take arbitrary action—to prohibit pending the hearing of the application of the vehicle builders and the decision of the Tariff Commission upon that application, the importation of motor buses into the country. I admit that is drastic action, but if the industry is to be preserved and it is most important that it should be, some such action will have to be taken. At the present moment I understand there is involved in this particular industry Irish capital amounting to something like £500,000. At the moment there are 1,700 men employed, and the men unemployed or on short time at the present time number 2,500. In view of the fact that the vehicle builders were relying upon securing a large percentage of the orders consequent upon the development of the bus services in this country, I think it would be very undesirable and regrettable indeed if by the mechanical operation of this Act, the effects of the tariff in their case, were, as I said, going to be nullified, and that the vehicle building industry was going to lose what was a splendid opportunity to enable it to get to its feet again.
Will Deputy MacEntee allow me for a moment to intervene with one remark? It will be necessary to take the Report Stage of the operative resolutions dealing with margarine and rosary beads to-morrow, so that they may not cease to have effect. I want to give notice, therefore, that they will be taken to-morrow, and if this debate cannot be finished early to-morrow it might be necessary to interrupt it in order to take the Report Stage of these two resolutions.
Ordered: That Resolutions 1 and 2 come to in the Committee on the 20th October be reported.
Progress reported. The Committee to sit again to-morrow.