asked the Minister for Local Government and Public Health whether he will specify the ports at which second-hand clothing is admitted to the Saorstát, and whether he will state in detail the precautions that are being taken by his Department to insure that such clothing is not capable of conveying infectious or contagious disease.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Danger of Infection from Second-Hand Clothing.
I would refer the Deputy to the Smallpox (Importation of Clothing, etc.) Temporary Regulations, 1927, which came into effect on the 1st September, 1927, and are still in operation under which second-hand clothing, used bedding and rags may only be imported into Saorstát Eireann from Great Britain and Northern Ireland through the ports of Dublin, Cork, Waterford or Galway, where it becomes the duty of the Port Sanitary authority to undertake the disinfection of the articles and to return them to the custody of the Customs and Excise authorities, subject to the following exemptions:
(1) articles transmitted by the postal service or forming part of passengers' luggage;
(2) goods in course of transit through Saorstát Eireann to an outside destination, if suitably packed;
(3) articles accompanied by a certificate of the Medical Officer of Health of the place of origin in Great Britain or Northern Ireland or of the port of arrival in Ireland that they had been efficiently disinfected;
(4) articles accompanied by a certificate from a Medical Officer of Health in Northern Ireland that they had not been imported from Great Britain.
Will the Minister state what is to prevent the substitution of second-hand clothing—that is to say, the substitution of a consignment imported through Northern Ireland?
The substitution of what?
The substitution of the consignment. For example, the Medical Officer of Health in Belfast certifies that a certain number of overcoats have been disinfected. What is to prevent the substitution of that consignment by a different consignment of clothing coming across the border?
I take it that the Customs officials in Northern Ireland do their duty and that in the same way the officers here perform their duty.
That is not an answer to the question at all. How is the Customs officer to know that a particular pair of trousers certified in Belfast as having been disinfected are the ones presented at the Border?