asked the Minister for Supplies whether he is aware that the quota of woollen textiles allotted by him to shopkeepers will operate to deprive country tailors and dressmakers, dependent on the customers of these shops for employment, of their means of livelihood: and whether he will revise the basis of allocation so as to secure for the rural interests a more equitable share of the total available supply.
Ceisteanna.—Questions. Oral Answers. - Quota of Woollen Textiles.
The answer to the first part of the Deputy's question is in the negative. The shortage of suplies might conceivably bring about tike position contemplated by the Deputy, but the quota system for woollen and worsted piece goods was introduced in order to minimise the risk that shortage of supplies would bring about that condition. The quota system has the effect of spreading the incidence of the shortage evenly over the country as a whole. I have been conscious that even with an equitable basis of distribution such as the Buying Permit procedure provides the quotas allotted to small shopkeepers might be insufficient to enable them to provide for the reasonable needs of tailors and dressmakers, and in the distribution period, which commenced on the 1st October, 1943, minimum quotas have been established for such small shopkeepers which are substantially in excess of the quotas which they would receive if they were treated on the same basis as other traders. In the case of tailors or dressmakers who provide the materials themselves, a special arrangement has been made to grant to all such small tailors and dressmakers minimum quotas which will enable them to continue to purchase materials at the same rate at which they purchased them in the year 1940. I am satisfied that the distribution of woollen and worsted materials on a quota basis secures, not only for the rural interests, but for all other interests concerned, an equitable share of the total available supplies.
Does the Minister advert to the fact that there is a considerable number of tailors and dressmakers in rural Ireland who never purchase their own cloth? They earn their livelihood from customers who bought cloth in country shops and brought it to the tailors and dressmakers to have it made up. The present allocation of materials to the country is so low that, inevitably, a considerable number of small tailors and dressmakers who are not organised, aid have no claim on the Department of Supplies, because they never bought cloth, will be forced out of business and put on outdoor relief. In these circumstances, will the Minister reconsider the exceptional treatment accorded to manufacturers in the city, and give at least a part of their surplus distribution to small shopkeepers in order to help to keep small tailors and dressmakers in business?
As I explained to tike Deputy, the only people getting exceptional treatment are small dressmakers and small tailors by reason of tile operation of the minimum quota system. They are getting proportionately more supplies than any other class.
Is the Minister aware that, in the datum year used for assessing the quantity of material allocated to the various parties, the manufacturers in Dublin were given permits to bring in large quantities of cheap tweeds from Great Britain which the ordinary shopkeepers down the country were not permitted to import, thus heavily loading the datum year in favour of the city manufacturer as opposed to the rural shopkeeper, with the result that although the present percentages may be the same, the datum year is so heavily loaded by these special concessions to the city manufacturers that the shopkeeper is in fact receiving too small a proportion of the supplies at present available?
I do not agree that that is the case. It is, of course, true that any year you may take as the datum for the purpose of a regulation of this kind may produce results more favourable to one class than another, but the obvious year to take is the year before the introduction of rationing. The circumstances of that year were more or less normal, and there is no reason to assume that its selection for the purpose of allocating quotas is operating with any considerable degree of unfairness in respect of any class of persons. Furthermore, as I have said, in the case of these small traders and small tailors, the basis of allocation gives them preferential treatment, and I feel that, having regard to the quantities of cloth available, they are not being unfairly treated. It must be recognised, of course, that there is a considerable scarcity of cloth and nobody can get anything like his requirements in these circumstances.