asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he is in a position to announce the arrangements, if any, to procure paper and cardboard for the printing and box-making industries.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Paper and Cardboard Supplies.
Mr. Byrne
I presume the Deputy desires to be informed of the procedure to be adopted by users in this country to procure supplies of imported paper and board. The procedure is as follows:—
(1) The quantities of paper and board which the British authorities have agreed to release to this country are divided over three quota periods of four months each, the current one of which commenced on 26th October, 1942;
(2) the share of the quota to which each importer is entitled on the basis of his pre-war imports of the particular class of paper is advised directly to the importer by my Department;
(3) the importer then orders his requirements of paper or board, within the limits of the quota, through the Éire Paper Imports Committee who arrange for the placing of the order with a manufacturer in Great Britain or Northern Ireland.
Persons who were not previously importers of paper must order their requirements from their usual local supplier.
In consultation with representatives of the box-making industry, a scheme to ensure an equitable distribution of available supplies of home-produced cardboard is at present under consideration.
Mr. Byrne
The Minister has presumed wrongly. That was not the information I wanted.
Then the Deputy had better put down the question in clearer form.
Mr. Byrne
What I wanted to know was what the Minister or the Government was doing to assist employers to obtain supplies so as to keep their employees at work.
I cannot have the officers of my Department spending their time trying to guess what the Deputy means by the questions which he puts down.
Is not what the question means perfectly clear if the Minister reads it?
I would not expect Deputy Dillon to admit it, but anybody who reads the question would say that I have answered it.
Mr. Byrne
It is obvious that those who furnished the reply misread my question and did not deal with the point on which I wanted information. That was: what the Government was doing to assist people to get paper and cardboard for the printing and box-making industries.
Better have another try at putting down a question on the Order Paper.
Read the question.
Let Deputy Byrne make a better effort to render his meaning clear.
Is not the question perfectly clear—to ask the Minister "if he is in a position to announce the arrangements, if any, to procure paper and cardboard for the printing and box-making industries in Éire"? Does not that ask the Minister what he is doing in order to get paper?
Must Deputy Dillon intervene in the case of every question? Has he a sort of fool's licence here?
Deputy Byrne wants to know what this man, who represents himself as Minister for Supplies, is doing to obtain supplies of paper.
The Minister for Supplies must be referred to as such.
Deputy Byrne wants to know what the Minister for Supplies is doing to get supplies of paper and cardboard. That is the question he was asked, and he has not answered it.