I gave notice to-day that on the adjournment I would raise the matters dealt with in Questions 22 and 23, in order to draw attention to the complete refusal of the Minister for Industry and Commerce to give any information as to where the new factories referred to in these questions are, and to whom they belong. Apparently we have come to the point when the Minister has made up his mind that under no circumstances and in regard to no type of factory will he tell this House where the factories are, who the owners are, or in fact anything about them. The Minister published a statement in the Dublin evening papers of January 13th which stated:
"I have prepared a list giving the number of new factories opened since March, 1932, under various headings. In addition to these factories there have been also opened over 150 workshops not mentioned in this list, bringing the total of new industrial concerns, large and small, to over 300."
I put some questions to the Minister in October with regard to the location of certain factories that were then mentioned. The information was too elaborate, the Minister said, but nevertheless he did not at that time consider it unreasonable that he should be asked in the House who it was had started the factories mentioned by him or where they were, and he told the House that he would consider laying on the Table of the Dáil, at a later date, a report of the kind indicated in the question. Subsequently, in March, and following the statement I have already referred to, I asked him for general particulars with regard to the various types of factories mentioned in the statement, and the Minister, in putting up objections to giving information, said that he was having a Directory of Irish industries prepared which would be available shortly. He made that statement on the 1st March. I was somewhat sceptical as to the time when we would get that Directory of Irish industries, and I think that my scepticism in the matter has been borne out, the Minister telling us to-day that he does not know yet when the Directory, promised in March last, is going to be available.
On the 8th March I asked him if he would tell me who the owners were and what the location was of the four boot factories referred to in his statement. He told me who they were and where they were, and in the following week I asked where the seven furniture factories were located and who the owners were and where the four upholstery factories were and who their owners were. The seven furniture factories were located in Dublin, but as he had to examine them in the light of the Control of Manufactures Act, he would not give any more information then with regard to them. He told me that three of the upholstery factories were in Dublin and one, I think, in Navan. To-day I asked him whether, having examined them in the light of the Control of Manufactures Act, he was now in a position to state who the owners of these seven furniture factories were and who the owners of the three upholstery factories were and where they were located, and I am informed that of the three upholstery factories, two did not come under the Control of Manufactures Bill and that the other had now gone out of existence, and that of the seven furniture factories, five did not come under the Control of Manufactures Bill and two of them have gone out of existence.
There is a general complaint by the Federation of Irish Industry that the Control of Manufactures Act is not having any effect, good, bad or indifferent, on the safeguarding of industry here, and that undesirable aliens are getting into Irish manufacture to the detriment of Irish manufacturers generally. In asking the Minister for information as to where these factories are and who the owners are, the House is not asking the Minister for any information not at his disposal. Further, the Minister has said, with reference to the factories referred to in his statement of the 13th January, that he had the names and addresses of those factories and, in criticising my efforts to get information on this matter on the 6th April last, he said:
"The Deputy is trying to create the idea that the statement made by me that, between May of last year and last January, 149 new factories were established, was not correct. It is correct. Every factory and workshop opened in this country must be registered in my Department. There were 303 new workshops registered, of which 149 were registered as factories."
So that all these are registered, but the Minister in addition subsequently asked the House to pass the Control of Manufactures Bill, which provides that:—
"It shall not be lawful for any person who carries on business by way of trade or for the purposes of gain to do any of the following things... that is to say, to make, alter, repair, ornament, finish, or to adapt for sale any article, material, or substance or any part of any article, material or substance, unless...."
he has certain qualifications. So that the Minister contemplates a review of the situation in order that no person would engage in any of these activities without coming under his review and information being at his disposal with regard to them. In asking the Minister, therefore, to let the House have this information, we are not asking for anything he has not got. I submit, in the first place, that common sense would dictate to us that when we are developing or endeavouring to develop to a certain type of self-sufficiency or, at any rate, when we are striving to reach a considerable development of Irish industry here, this House should be put in the position of being able to watch that development as closely as possible. In the second place, it has been charged in the past against Irish manufacturers that they were a kind of dark brotherhood, and if there is a tendency on the part of the Irish manufacturers at the moment to keep in the dark, I think that in so far as Deputies of this House are concerned, they should be able to know where they are.
The main things that drive me to pursue this question and to ask the Minister finally whether he is going to make for the future, arrangements that will enable Deputies of the House to know who are the owners of factories developing and where they are, are the facts that, with great patience and persistence, we have been able to accumulate with regard to the matters on which he based his statement of January last. The Minister's statement to-day discloses that two of the seven furniture factories which he put into his list of January last had gone out of existence and that one of the upholstery factories—speaking now of the upholstery factories in Dublin— has already gone out of existence. All the factories that the Minister boasted of in his January statement were factories of that particular kind and, so far as the Minister's credit goes in declaring that Irish factories have been set up, it would almost have been much better for him as Minister if the rest had gone out of existence, too. When one comes to discuss a situation like this, one has, on the one hand, to face the picture of a few men in a stable in a lane in Dublin trying to eke out an existence by the work of their hands—and one can have nothing but the greatest sympathy and admiration for such men, whether they are working themselves with their families or employing others, even juveniles, and trying to eke out an existence in these difficult times—but, on the other hand, when in the circumstances industrially and agriculturally and economically in which we are at present, we have a Minister withholding information from this House and when the impression is being given that Irish industry is being developed here on big lines and when that is based on a few workers working in stables in some of the back lanes of Dublin, we have to be concerned about another matter.
We have to be concerned about the future of Irish industry and the future of workers in Dublin and elsewhere at the present time and their children, when they grow up. We want to see whether Irish industry is developing in any other way than in some of the stables in the lanes in the City of the City of Dublin and it is this consideration, as I say, that makes me raise this question again to-night. The Minister declared, in answer to a question of mine last week, that out of a certain number of names only four persons of those surnames had set up industries which were included in the list he published in January last. The Minister, in fact, when replying to me and telling me where the boot industries were located mentioned another one of them, so that, on the face even of his own statement, the answer he gave me last week was incorrect.
I just want to say in addition that I have not the slightest respect for the Minister's statement in so far as truth is concerned, in his answer to me here last week. Many of the factories, that the Minister claims to have been set up, were set up by persons of the names mentioned in that list. At the present moment I can deal simply with furniture and upholstery. It has been very difficult to find out where these factories are and by whom they are owned. I want to tell the Minister that the three upholstery factories which he claimed in his list were set up, one by a man named Levy, another by a man named Crammer, and another by a man named Minister. The Minister declares one of these has gone out of existence. He declares that one of the furniture firms has also gone out of existence. An industry set up by a man named Yaffe in furniture making has gone out of existence, but a Mr. Levy, who ran a factory in the North Lotts, now occupies the place previously occupied by Mr. Yaffe, so that the industrial situation is not such as was indicated by the Minister's reply. Three factories were set up in these names, and at the present moment two are employed in one factory, a man and three juveniles in another, and two men and four boys in a third. One is in a place in Little Denmark Street and another is in stables in the North Lotts. In this factory the name of the owner has been changed from Minister to Norstrom. The factory vacated by Mr. Levy is also in the hands of Mr. Norstrom. The two upholstery factories employ between them three men and seven boys. I submit to the Minister that neither the Workshops and Factories Act, the sanitary authorities, nor even trade union control, touches in any way these places, that in the January list were called factories. I submit also that shame alone on the Minister's part no doubt prevented him answering the question I put in March last.
When I turn to the furniture side, one of the Minister's factories which is in Dominick Lane is run by a father and son, in a stable at the back of Dominick Street. Another is in Henrietta Place. It had been taken by Yaffe and is now occupied by a man named Levy. It is run by one man and a boy. Another is in Grantham Place and the place is run by one adult, the person himself, and three juveniles. These are the names and these are the factories about which the Minister will not give us any information. I can understand the position of the Minister in not giving information about factories in these particular places. As regards the furniture factories, the Minister to-day declared "that in five of the seven cases referred to in the question it has been ascertained that the businesses are either in the beneficial ownership of Saorstát nationals or were established prior to the 1st June, 1932."
