Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 16 Jun 1936

Vol. 62 No. 16

Public Business. - Turf (Use and Development) Bill, 1935—Report Stage.

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. Lemass)

I move amendment No. 1:—

In page 2, Section 1, to insert between lines 47 and 48 the words "the word `delivery' wherever it occurs in the expression `sale and delivery' includes delivery at the premises of the coal retailer in relation to whom that expression is used".

During the course of the discussion on Committee Stage, Deputy Morrissey suggested that it might be desirable to have a definition of the phrase "sale and delivery." This amendment is designed to provide that definition and to make it clear that "delivery" includes delivery at the premises of the coal retailer in question.

Amendment agreed to.

An Ceann Comhairle

Amendments Nos. 2 and 3, being amendments which should have been tabled in Committee, are out of order and may not be moved. The Deputies concerned have been so informed.

Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 not moved.

Mr. Lemass

I move amendment No. 4:—

In page 3, before Section 5, to insert a new section as follows:—

(1) The Minister may, whenever and so often as he thinks proper, by order (in this Act referred to as a suspension order) suspend, as on and from a date (not earlier than the date of such order) specified in such order, any appointed area order.

(2) Whenever the Minister has made a suspension order, he may at his discretion by order (in this section referred to as a termination order) terminate, as on and from a date (not earlier than the date of such termination order), specified in such termination order, the suspension effected by such suspension order of the appointed area order to which such suspension order relates.

(3) Whenever the Minister has made a suspension order, the appointed area order to which such suspension order relates shall be suspended as on and from the date specified in that behalf in such suspension order and shall continue to be so suspended until the date as on and from which such suspension is terminated by a termination order.

(4) Whenever an appointed area order is suspended under this section, the appointed area order to which such order relates shall, immediately upon the commencement of such suspension, cease to be an appointed area for the purposes of this Act, but shall, on the date as on and from which such suspension order is terminated, become and again be an appointed area for the said purposes.

(5) Whenever an appointed area order is suspended under this section, the Minister shall, during such suspension, maintain and keep in accordance with this Act the register of coal retailers established in pursuance of this Act in respect of the appointed area to which such order relates, but nothing in this sub-section shall render it obligatory upon any person to be registered in such register during such suspension.

It is proposed to insert a new section with the object of providing for any unanticipated interruption of turf supplies, which, while not of sufficient magnitude to justify revoca- tion or amendment of an appointed area order, would, nevertheless, make it desirable to suspend the order. This section is designed to provide for that temporary suspension of the operation of an appointed area order where such circumstances might arise as would necessitate it.

General Mulcahy

The Minister will recollect that when this Bill was before us on the previous occasion, he could give us no idea as to what an appointed area was going to be, and he could give us no reason why subdivisions of an appointed area that would involve all kinds of different provisions as to the quantity of turf to be bought with coal and that class of thing should be made. Now he introduces an amendment which looks as if the plan was going to be further spotted. Under the Bill as it stands, we may have an appointed area; we may have a part of an appointed area; and inside a part of an appointed area, we may have different regulations. Is this amendment intended to apply to an appointed area as a whole? Is it intended to be applicable simply to part of an appointed area, or is it intended to apply to certain sections of provisions inside an appointed area? The plan which the Minister put before us with regard to differentiating between an appointed area, and different provisions with regard to turf inside part of an appointed area, led many members to emphasise that all these provisions indicated that the Minister did not know what he was going to do, and that he did not know what his Bill was intended to achieve, and, particularly, that he had no idea at all as to what steps he was going to take in any area to achieve anything he had in mind with regard to this Bill. The provisions of this amendment, as I say, seem to add a few more spots to his plan, and I think he ought to take this opportunity of letting the House know whether he has cleared his mind with regard to his plan in so far as appointed areas, parts of appointed areas, and different provisions inside parts of appointed areas are features of that plan.

Mr. Morrissey

I did not hear the Minister giving any explanation——

Mr. Lemass

I did, nevertheless.

Mr. Morrissey

I am sorry I missed it, because it is rather unique to have the Minister explain anything in this House. I should have been very interested to hear the Minister's reasons for this amendment. He is apparently cooling in his enthusiasm as to the possibilities of this Bill of his, and he seems to be afraid that there will not be as much turf available as he thought at first. Is he finding that the people are not simply jumping at the 11/- a ton and that there is not going to be as much turf available as he led the House to believe when he brought the Bill before us? As Deputy Mulcahy has said, we tried on Committee Stage to get some information from the Minister as to the size, location and so on of the specified areas, but the Minister was silent and refused to give any information. The Minister is to specify certain quantities of turf within the specified areas, and he has taken power to make different orders for different parts of the same area, and now he wants to get the power to suspend an order at any time he thinks fit, and, so far as I can see, without any notice whatever, so that we may find an area prescribed and an obligation placed on people to purchase and sell specified quantities of turf, and the order may be in operation for a week, a month or three months, and then suddenly, at the whim of the Minister, suspended or allowed to operate in part of an area and suspended in another part. So far as it will be possible to work this complicated Bill at all, it certainly is not going to make for easier working. In my opinion it is going to make for greater confusion.

There is one matter which may be considered a small point. If the Minister prescribes a certain area and lays down the amount of turf to be sold in relation to coal in that area, the coal merchants will have to make provisions for supplies of turf, and, having made provision for supplies, and perhaps having entered into contracts for a whole season's supply, the society or approved source under the Bill may find the order which will enable them to get rid of those turf supplies suspended by the Minister, and may find themselves saddled, as I say, with a contract for a full season's supply of turf. There is nothing in this amendment to safeguard the merchants from that position, because, so far as I can see, the order may be suspended at any time at the whim of the Minister.

Mr. Brennan

I think this amendment is really evidence of the evaporation of the Minister's enthusiasm. He has given himself a way to back out and I think it was an absolute necessity. The Minister, I think, realises that this is not going to be the success he had hoped, if he had hoped it was going to be a success. Personally, I must say that we had not any hope for it at any time, and I think that something of the nature of the amendment was an absolute necessity, no matter what confusion it caused, because the operation of the Bill, in my opinion, will result in a hopeless muddle no matter what the Minister tries to do. I think that this particular amendment is an absolute necessity.

Mr. Morrissey

I wonder if the Minister will reply to my point in regard to a coal merchant who has entered into a contract for a supply of turf for the whole season. What will be the position of that merchant if the Minister uses this power?

Mr. Lemass

I must say that Deputy's Brennan's remarks are completely unintelligible to me. Under the Bill the Minister has power to revoke an Order of this kind and he can use that power of revocation at any time and thus make the Act cease to apply in the area concerned. In this section the Minister is merely taking power to make a suspension Order in any area where, for any unanticipated cause, there may be difficulty or inability to get turf supplies, and this power of suspension is designed to deal with such a set of circumstances only where it is not anticipated that the interruption of supplies will be for any length of time, and it is desired not to destroy the machinery set up for the administration of the Act, and to maintain the register of coal merchants while, at the same time, releasing them temporarily from the obligation to supply turf, when, for some reason, turf cannot be obtained. It is only in these circumstances that the power of suspension will be operated, and I think it is desirable that we should have this power of suspension in the Bill because, otherwise, the only way of dealing with such circumstances as I have described would be by means of a revocation Order, and that would mean a lot of difficulty as well as considerable expense if, subsequently, it was desired to make a new Order. By this device of a temporary suspension Order we can maintain all the machinery while, at the same time, releasing the coal merchants from their obligations under the Act for the time being where necessary.

Amendment No. 4 agreed to.

Mr. Lemass

I move amendment No. 5:—

In page 3, line 56, Section 5, after the word "order" to insert the words "or by virtue of a suspension order."

This amendment is consequential.

Amendment No. 5 agreed to.

Mr. Lemass

I move amendment No. 6:—

In page 7, Section 15 (3), line 44, to delete the word "coal" and substitute the word "turf."

This amendment is designed to correct an obvious misprint.

Amendment No. 6 agreed to.

Mr. Lemass

I move amendments Nos. 7, 8, 9 and 10:—

7. In page 9, Section 18 (1), line 55, to delete the words "the board and the board" and substitute the words "an approved source and the board, society, or company which is such approved source," and, in line 57, to delete the words "the board" and substitute the words "such board, society or company (as the case may be)," and, in line 60, to delete the words "the board" and substitute the words "such approved source."

8. In page 10, Section 18 (1), to delete all words from the word "and" in line 2 to the end of the sub-section.

9. In page 10, Section 18 (2), line 6, to delete the words "by the Board" and after the word "section" to insert the words "by the Board or a society or company which is an approved source" and, in lines 10 and 11, to delete the words "the Board" and substitute the words "an approved source."

10. In page 10, Section 18 (5), line 37 and also in lines 41 and 42, to delete the words "the board" and substitute in each case the words "an approved source".

There are four amendments to this section, and the purpose of these amendments is to give effect to a suggestion which was made here, I think, by Deputy O'Sullivan, in the course of the discussion on the Committee Stage of the Bill: namely, that approved sources other than the Turf Development Board should be able to furnish the certificates provided for in the section. The first of these amendments—amendment No. 7—proposes to extend the privilege of issuing these certificates to any approved co-operative society or approved peat fuel company. The other amendments are consequential upon that. Amendment No. 7 provides for the deletion of certain words at the end of the section and the other amendments are consequential to the changes in the wording of the section. I think it is a desirable amendment. I agree that Deputy O'Sullivan proposed amendments of considerably wider scope, which I was unable to accept, but, arising out of the discussion at that time, I agreed to consider this suggestion which was a modification of Deputy O'Sullivan's original suggestion. Now, under these amendments it is proposed to give the right of issuing certificates to any approved co-operative society or company. Certain risks are being taken in that regard even here, but we feel that the control the board will have over the co-operative societies will be such as to obviate any danger of these powers being used injudiciously or wrongly by these societies or companies, and we feel that it will facilitate the administration of the Act.

General Mulcahy

As the Minister indicates, the effect of this Bill, when it was first drafted, was that a person down the country buying turf from anybody—even from an approved society—could get no certificate which would be of any value to him under this Bill, no matter what amount of turf he bought in bulk from any coal retailer, unless he bought from a certain source, and it meant that he would have to buy more turf from that person—that turf being supplied from an approved society. Now the Minister admits that he has been moved to accept an amendment the effect of which is that, where a person down the country buys a quantity of turf, the approved society will have to give him a certificate that he has got that turf. That will be a protection to him inasmuch as, when he does buy coal, he will not have to buy more turf, but it leaves aside completely the case made by Deputy Finlay when he mentioned that he bought, regularly every year, two ricks of turf and that he could get no certificate from the person who has been engaged in the turf industry to that extent—the person who, I suppose, has supplied other persons than Deputy Finlay, in his neighbourhood, with very substantial quantities of turf. Persons who buy in that particular way cannot get a certificate from the people from whom they buy their turf, and that means that such people are to be forced either to do without turf, if there is no approved society in the area, or leave the person with whom they have been dealing for, I suppose, many years in the past. It means that they will be forced to deal with somebody else.

The Minister speaks of the dangers he runs even by introducing the amendments here. When the Minister was thinking of these dangers, I wish he had given a little more consideration to the point of view put forward from these benches. I wish he had gone a little bit further and, if possible, given further thought to the view that has been expressed, I think, so cogently and clearly, from these benches, with regard to the large-scale vendor of turf. Perhaps the Minister would tell us what dangers would lie in further extending these amendments suggested here to include the large-scale vendor of turf down the country who has been in the habit of selling large quantities of turf in the way that has been indicated.

Mr. Lemass

Of course, the danger we are running in inserting the amendments proposed here is that secretaries of turf societies, on occasion, may issue these certificates improperly or inaccurately. In fact, it may even happen that inducements will be offered to secretaries of such societies to do so. I think, however, that, through the supervision of the Turf Board, and by reason of the general control which the Turf Board exercises over these societies, we will be able to minimise that danger, if not to eliminate it altogether. However, that danger is there, and I think that danger would be very great—in fact, I doubt if any practicable means of meeting it could be devised—if we were to extend this arrangement to cover individual turf producers. The number of such might be considerable. At any rate, the number that might come forward and claim to be in that category would be probably considerable. There would be no effective means of checking the accuracy of any certificates which such persons might issue. Under these circumstances we could not consider the proposal made in that regard. It would operate, I think, to nullify the whole purpose of the Bill, and in any event I doubt if it could be regarded as necessary in all the circumstances, because the persons likely to be affected will be able to make other arrangements to continue their business.

Amendments agreed to.

Mr. Lemass

I move amendment No. 11:—

In page 12, Section 22 (1), line 38, to delete the words "within twenty-four hours" and substitute the words "shall, not later than the next day which is not a Sunday or a bank holiday", and, in line 39, to delete the word "shall".

I put in this amendment to meet a point raised by Deputy Morrissey as to the duration of the 24 hours in respect of making returns where transactions take place on Saturday.

Amendment agreed to.

The following Government amendment was agreed to:—

In page 13, Section 22 (4) (c), line 2, after the word "Minister" to insert the words "in writing", and in line 3 to delete the words "in writing".

Question—"That the Bill, as amended, be received for final consideration"—put and agreed to.

Final Stage ordered for Tuesday, June 23rd.