The position is: the industry supplied 50 per cent. of the requirements in 1933. There has been continuous increase in production, involving, as the Deputy knows, a new factory which opened during the present week. It is not possible to say with precision what percentage of the total trade of the country these factories are capable of supplying in the present year. In that connection, Deputy Mulcahy and Deputy Coburn referred to the fact that the import figures for the first quarter of the present year showed an increase. That increase is, I think, due to two causes. The first and, I think, the main cause, was anticipation on the part of certain firms that the duty on boots and shoes would be increased, or that the Control of Manufactures Act would be operated to restrict imports. For that reason, they were getting in supplies in advance. The increase is also due to the fact that a very large proportion of the retail trade in boots and shoes is in the hands of English multiple shops. One Deputy—I think it was Deputy Coburn —talked about the possibility of people still preferring to buy English boots or shoes. I do not think that that is so. I think that the public is very well satisfied with the value, quality and style of the boots produced by the Saorstát factories. But they are not always able to get them. That is due to the fact that these multiple shops have arrangements made with manufacturers in Great Britain under which they take the whole output of a single factory. They can afford to pay the import duty here if they spread the cost of paying that duty over their entire sales, whether in this country or in Great Britain. We have made various representations to the management of these stores and not without result. The situation will, however, require careful watching to ensure that boot and shoe manufacturers here get an opportunity of doing what they are rapidly becoming capable of doing—supplying the total requirements of the country. I think that there is still room for one or two, if not more, additional boot and shoe factories before we can say that our production capacity is all that it might be. The number of additional workers employed in the industry as compared with 1931 is 1,400. It is to be noted in the case of that industry that we have succeeded in doing what Deputy Minch was talking about—securing a degree of decentralisation. The new factories are situate in Dundalk, Drogheda, Kells, Kilkenny and Limerick, while the existing factories of Cork, Waterford, Carlow and Dublin have also benefited by the measures adopted.
In the textile group, with the exception of two new plants, established for the manufacture of rope and twine, the additional employment of roughly 1,000, as compared with the figure for 1931, took place in existing establishments—the numerous woollen mills, the linen and cotton factories and the jute spinning and weaving factories. It is to be noted that the total import of textiles in 1933, as compared with 1931 showed no reduction. That, of course, was due to the fact that, despite the rapid increase in the production of textile goods here, the expansion in the ready-made clothing trade, which is the principal market for these goods, was still more rapid, and the demand of the ready-made clothing trade for piece goods was met partly from the increased production of the Saorstát mills and partly from the increased imports of the type of cloth they required. The Department at present is concentrating on the possibility of securing the production here of the cheaper grades of cloth which are required, in the main, by the ready-made clothing trade. As is well known, most of the Saorstát woollen mills produce high-grade cloth only, for which they are able to find an export market on merit. In our opinion, there is room for at least six additional mills to produce the lower-grade cloth which is represented by the 6,000,000 square yards which we imported last year, and we have at present under consideration plans to secure the establishment of these mills in various parts of the country.
Under the heading of metal manufactures there has been an increase of employment of about 2,000 as compared with 1931. A number of workshops were established for the assembling of various metal articles, such as gas cookers, gas meters, weighing machines, bicycles and so forth. The main increase in employment, however, in connection with these firms, was in connection with the fabrication of constructional steel and in the manufacture of metal window frames and so forth. The general foundry and engineering trade, which was languishing for many years owing to severe competition from abroad, can now give increased employment to over 400 workers. A new plant has been established for the manufacture of galvanised hollow ware and various other articles, such as the manufacture of wire, spades and shovels, tin containers, brass rods, gun-metal goods, razor blades, reinforcing metal, sparking plugs, motor radiators, coffin mountings and so forth.
As a result of the protective duties and the other measures that have been adopted by the Government, all the commercial motor car bodies and omnibus bodies used here are now manufactured in the Saorstát and a very substantial beginning has been made in the creation of an industry for the assembling of chassis and the assembling of the bodies for the ordinary private motor car. There are six or seven makes of car now on the market which are entirely assembled in the Saorstát both as to chassis and body. Perhaps I should not say that they are entirely assembled here, but assembled in accordance with the definition of assembly which has been prepared by me and which qualifies the persons conforming to that definition to obtain certain facilities in the matter of importing parts and in the matter of the road tax concession where the horse power exceeds 16. With regard to the question of wood and timber, up to last year practically all the timber requirements of the Saorstát were imported planed and dressed, but the imposition of the new duties has resulted in a substituted import of raw timber. Modern fast-planing machines have been installed by a number of saw-milling firms. The imports of builder's woodwork, which, prior to 1931, had been imported to an average value of about £60,000, fell in 1933 to a value of £15,000, despite the substantial increase that took place here in building activities in that year. That also we have reason to think should disappear this year. The domestic woodware imported in 1931 was about five times the value of that imported in 1933. Furniture imports also fell by half. Wooden boxes and parts are now imported only to the value of about half the amount formerly imported, and the current year should see that disappear also. Other wooden manufactures which were imported in 1931 to the value of £200,000 are now all being produced at home. We have found considerable difficulty in getting precise figures as to the numbers of persons employed in that trade because it is carried on in a very large number of establishments all over the country, but we estimate that the increased employment cannot be less than 1,000 or 1,500.
There has been a very definite expansion in the production of all classes of goods required in the erection of houses—bricks, roofing materials, and so on—and about 25 new concerns have been opened for the production of these goods. Deputy Brodrick spoke at some length on the question of slate production. I cannot say that I am satisfied with the present slate production in the Saorstát. I think that those who control the slate quarries might have shown considerably more enterprise and courage in the matter of the investment of capital and in the increasing of the production of these goods, which are in very considerable demand. In fact, not merely are they in demand in this country, but in other countries. I am informed by the proprietors of one of the principal slate quarries in the country that they have on their books orders from other countries sufficient to absorb their total output. Accordingly, we could have supplied not merely all the requirements of our own country, but could have developed an export trade as well. As it is, we do not even supply our own requirements, and licences for importing in certain cases have to be issued by the Department of Local Government. Actually, there is no import duty on slates—Deputy Brodrick is misinformed in that regard —but the Department of Local Government and Public Health have laid down a condition that they will not give the housing grant in respect of any houses except Irish roofing materials have been used. Occasionally, however, they have permitted the use of imported slate in these houses where special circumstances made it undesirable that tiles should be used, and they are taking a similar course in respect of other housing materials where home production is inadequate.
There has been a substantial expansion in the production of grates, ranges, rain-water goods, and so on, but even still we are not producing anything like enough of these articles. No matter how substantial an increase in their output the existing foundries may be able to show there is, in addition to these foundries, room for one large foundry for the production of grates, ranges, rain-water goods, and so on, and we are trying to make arrangements for the establishment of such a factory in the South of Ireland.
With regard to the production of slate, there were four slate quarries in operation in 1931. At the present time, we have got ten in active commercial operation, and in the case of about seven additional quarries there is work in progress at present—not, however, on slate production, but in preparing the quarry for production or in exploration work, such as the clearing of over-burden—work which is, in the main, subsidised by the Department of Industry and Commerce. The main slate quarries at present in production are in Tipperary, Cork, one in Donegal, and recently a slate quarry which exists in Mayo has been granted facilities under the Trade Loan Acts and should be able to increase its production in the very near future. There have, of course, been very considerable developments in the printing, stationery and bag and box-making industries, and as Deputies are aware, two large factories for the production of cartons and boxes are at present being built in Dublin, in addition to five new establishments which have already been brought into existence. There are a very large number of industries in respect to which detailed reports would take a long time, such as those dealing with paints, polishes, soaps and candles, pottery, tanning, glass bottles and so forth.
