The Stationery Office Estimates for the year 1928-29 show decreases spread practically over all sub-heads, amounting in the aggregate to over £13,000. This Department provides for the use of the Public Services: (a) stationery such as paper and small stationery, stamping instruments, typewriters, duplicators and duplicating and accounting machinery, leather bags, etc., etc., under the Sub-heads J and K: (b) paper for printing, printing for Departments, Oireachtas, Dáil and Seanad Debates, Bills, Acts, "Iris Oifigiúil," Sub-heads E, F, G, I; (c) binding, Sub-head L; (d) published books for use of Departments and Oireachtas, Sub-head M.
The estimated cost of supplies to each Department, which is a figure based on the expenditure of the last completed previous year, modified by Departmental expectations for this year, is shown at the foot of each separate Departmental estimate in the Estimates. The above services are generally free, that is, the cost of them is borne by the Stationery Office. The Stationery Office also supplies printing, binding, stationery and publications for a number of services the cost of which is borne elsewhere. The Shannon Development Branch of Industry and Commerce, the Electricity Supply Corporation, the Currency Commission, the Agricultural Credit Corporation, the Savings Bank, the Roads Department of Local Government, provision of textbooks in Irish for Department of Education, Sub-head F, Vote 47, provision of General Readers in Irish, Sub-head C 1, Vote 49, come under this head. In these cases the Stationery Office meets all charges and recovers the total cost from the services periodically.
The Stationery Office does not provide for any requirement of public bodies. There is one exception, however, and that is the printing of electors' lists, claims and objections, and registers of electors under the Electoral Acts, Sub-head H, page 86. This is, however, more in the nature of a national service, and has been undertaken by the Stationery Office since 1918, and the annual register includes the list of qualified electors for Dáil, Seanad and local government elections and those persons entitled to act as jurors. Four-sevenths of the cost of printing under this service is recovered from the local authorities, as will be seen from Sub-head N, page 87. Also pages 85 and 87 give in detail the anticipated expenditure and receipts shown on page 85. Pages 88 and 89 show the actual expenditure of the Stationery Office on supplies to each Department in a previous year, for the information of the Oireachtas and the public, that for 1926-27 being the latest available year. It would not be possible to have given the year 1927-28, for the reason that the Estimates were prepared in December and January last. The expenditure of the Stationery Office on page 88 is shown as £32,238. As, however, will be seen from the footnote, these are mostly purchases for stock to meet Departmental demands.
The prices of Stationery Office publications have been reduced very considerably in recent years so as to attract the largest public support. Every avenue of developing Irish manufactured stationery is being explored. This Department at present obtains exclusively from Irish manufacturers its total supplies of writing and fountain pen inks, leather goods such as gusset bags, attaché cases, etc.; gum and office paste, with the exception of small supplies of specialised articles such as glucine; cords and twine for wrapping purposes, rubber stamps, inkstands—wooden, ink baskets, wooden rulers, metal filing boxes, metal cash boxes, metal deed boxes, metal damping tins, pocket diaries, wood and cord folio boxes, canvas bags, metal seals.
The expenditure in Ireland on printing, binding, paper and envelopes, amounted to £90,000 approximately in the year 1927-28, the bulk of which represents payments to those actually employed—Printers, Binders, &c., &c. —in the production of the work. With regard to the formulation of Estimates for this Vote, the Stationery Office exercises the utmost care. The general service figures are based on the estimates furnished by each Department to the Stationery Office in November of each year, which figures are subjected in the Stationery Office to a close scrutiny in comparison with the most recent figures of actual expenditure on each Department. Provision must, however, be made for expenditure which it is anticipated will arise as a result of the legislative activities of the Oireachtas, a matter impossible of accurate and at times of even remotely approximate forecast, the only criterion in this case being the actual expenditure on the last complete preceding year. Another factor of prime influence on departmental expenditure is that arising from the number of new Acts of the Oireachtas. In most cases when an Act becomes operative law there follows considerable departmental activities involving expenditure by the Stationery Office on, say, printing and printing and binding; these may include the printing of Statutory Rules and Orders, Official Notices in "Iris Oifigiuil" (Sub-head G.S.O. Vote), the extent of which it is impossible to anticipate. It will be understood that there is, unfortunately, now no alternative to the purchase of paper outside our own borders, with the exception of higher grade certain correspondence papers and brown wrapping paper, satisfactory supplies of which, at favourable prices are secured from home sources.
It will be clear that such items as pens, pencils, typewriters, calculators, adding machines and proprietary articles generally, in default of Irish competition, have to pass to other competitors. Proprietary articles are never purchased, however, where it is possible to obtain something equally good of Irish manufacture, and it is interesting to record that the Stationery Office has in recent years replaced proprietary special binders by articles equally satisfactory made at home, at satisfactory prices.
The Estimate figures for this Vote for the past four years are:—1924-25. £187,029; 1925-26, £170,385; 1926-25 £155,325; 1927-28, £137,289; while for 1928-29 the figure is £123,999.
