Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 22 Mar 1960

Vol. 180 No. 6

Committee on Finance. - Imposition of Duties (Confirmation of Orders) Bill, 1960—Second Stage.

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. J. Lynch)

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." The purpose of this Bill is to confirm 28 Orders made under the Imposition of Duties Act, 1957. This Act provides that Orders imposing or amending duties made under the Act must be confirmed in the calendar year following that in which they are made.

The duties imposed by nine of these Orders afford protection to new industries. Nine others protect the manufacture of additional lines which were undertaken by existing concerns. A further seven Orders amended existing duties where experience had shown that these duties were not adequate because of increasingly severe competition from imports. Two further Orders were made because the existing duties were being evaded.

The remaining Order is an exemption Order which removes from the duty on metal containers, articles used in connection with the brewing industry.

An explanatory memorandum on the Bill has been circulated to Deputies. Dealing with each of them in detail now would take up undue time but if any Deputy requires further information or wishes me to answer any questions I shall attempt to do so when replying. The Orders are set out in general in the explanatory memorandum which has been circulated.

Mr. Sweetman

I thought I heard the Minister say that the parent Act provides that these Orders must be confirmed within the calendar year——

Mr. J. Lynch

Following that in which they are made.

Mr. Sweetman

I did not hear that bit. I thought, perhaps, the suggestion would be made that all these Orders had been made since the 1st January last. As far as the general pattern of these Orders is concerned, I think the Minister will agree with me when I say it is more a matter for discussion of the individual Orders on the Committee Stage rather than any Second Reading debate. I certainly do not intend to delay the House or have a prolonged discussion on the Second Reading but I should like to ask one specific question. If the Minister cannot answer it now I should like him to be in a position to answer it on the Committee Stage: for the benefit of how many factories in each case does the Order operate? I do not know whether the Minister feels he can give me the location of those factories.

I should also like the Minister to give an indication of the employment content it is hoped to realise by the Order in each case. I do not want to get into a detailed discussion to-day on individual items but there is an uneasy feeling abroad in respect of one item here because distributors have to buy a proportion of that item from the home market before they can get any imports. That, while irksome, I can understand, but what I cannot understand—if it is true—is that they have to buy it through one particular agent and that they are not able to qualify for import licences unless they buy through that particular agent.

That seems to me to be entirely misusing the powers that are here. I am not suggesting that the Minister has named this agent; he has not. He has been named by the company, but I suggest that when an Order of this nature is made there should be attached to the licence given by the Minister for Industry and Commerce a specific provision that the booking of orders which the State is forcing the retailer to make in that line of product should not be restricted by anybody to one particular person. If there are to be any monopolies in the country, the monopoly must be the State and the State alone.

Everybody knows that my views are against nationalisation, except insofar as it is completely necessary, but I am quite clear that if there is to be a monopoly, it is the Government of the country for the time being who must be in charge of that monopoly. That such a situation should exist, as I am advised does exist in respect of one of these commodities, is, in my view, most unjust, most unfair and one that should be abolished and abolished quickly.

I do not propose to go into questions of personality in regard to the particular agent who, I am advised, is in the position of being able to control what imports of that commodity are obtained. It is a humiliating position for the State that one individual in a private position should be able to say what quantity can be imported and what quantity cannot. In relation to that commodity, there is a proportion of five to two—five parts of the home product must be obtained before two parts of the imported product can be obtained and that I can understand.

What I cannot understand is that the home product can be bought only through one specified manufacturer's agent. That seems to me quite outrageous and a system that should be abolished by the Minister attaching to his licensing provisions an undertaking by the firm concerned that that will not arise. I want to be perfectly clear. I am not suggesting the agent concerned is a nominee of the Minister. He is not; he is the nominee of the company. But the Minister in making the licensing provisions should ensure that the company is not in a position to give an exclusive right of that sort to such a nominee.

In relation to the general principle of these impositions of duties, I have always felt it would be far better from a national point of view if we gave a rather higher duty than was necessary at the initial stage and had a standard arrangement, a completely standard arrangement, that having given that higher duty at the beginning, duties would automatically come down by five per cent. per annum. The figure of five per cent. is entirely arbitrary, but there should be some means by which there would be an automatic inducement for those in the industry, be they the owners of that industry or be they the people working in that industry, to strive for greater productivity and in that way to bring down costs to the consumer. It might mean slightly higher costs to the consumer at the beginning. I do not deny that. I would not worry if that were the position, so long as it brought them down in the long run and so long as it enabled us in the long run to get greater productivity over industry as a whole.

I must say also in passing that in these days, when we are talking of negotiations with "The Six" and "The Seven", a Bill of this sort is somewhat of an anachronism. If Europe is to move towards any type of freer trade, one of the prime essentials is that we gear ourselves to greater efficiency and productivity. Flat tariffs and flat quotas, remaining the same in the foreseeable future as at the time they are introduced, provide none of the inducements that some type of variation would provide to greater efficiency in production.

Dr. Browne

I am sorry the Minister did not take the opportunity, in presenting these Orders to the Dáil for confirmation, of making some general statement on his attitude to the continuance of the imposition of duties and tariff protection in relation to our industries. As Deputy Sweetman said, at a time when the whole of Europe is considering the establishment of free trade, it is particularly depressing to find we are still clinging to the protection policy, without, apparently, any attempt to break out from the cul-de-sac in which we appear to have arrived over the past 30 years. I think the Minister should have made a very strong positive statement warning the industrialists there is to be a limited time during which we shall continue to afford this protection to these industries, that there should be some suggestion such as that of Deputy Sweetman for a continual progressive diminution in protection over the years and that if they cannot survive in that atmosphere, then they will have to go to the wall.

I fully appreciate the Minister is a prisoner to a considerable extent because of the last sentence usually contained in these applications for tariff protection: "If you do not grant it to us, the factory will have to close down and we shall have to put men out of employment." I think that is a proposition the Minister has to face and master. If the country is carrying many uneconomic industries, we have to face that. The person carrying this is the consumer.

Recently we had a lecture from the Taoiseach on the influence which wage increases have on the general national economy, and he implied or threatened that the worker would have to be educated to realise he could not have these increases in wages because it was his view that higher wages brought higher priced industrial products and consequently we priced ourselves out of European and world markets. It seems to me that one of the most important factors in this whole question of the higher priced low quality product is this unending protection we are giving to many of these industries which no longer deserve it.

It was quite permissible in the earlier years, but surely the time has come now when the older established industries should be warned that the era of protection is ending, that they must learn to stand on their own feet and that the alternative employment will have to be provided by the energies of the State itself by finding the capital to establish industries and run them competently rather than allow private enterprise to run them incompetently as at present.

I am particularly interested in Order No. 78, which is No. 23 in the explanatory memorandum. It relates to medicinal tablets and it strikes me that the Minister's approach to the imposition of that tariff was unnecessarily clumsy. I admit that in his position it is difficult for him to examine and try to safeguard the public completely from the repercussions of the imposition of tariffs of one kind or another. However, I think that in the question of these medicinal tablets, special circumstances pertain which are not normally or usually found, and I think it would have been better from both the Minister's point of view and that of the public if he had taken steps to consult the various interests concerned before introducing the Order imposing this tariff on imported medicines and drugs.

I know that the Minister for Health and the Department of Health have their row with the Irish Medical Association. That is their own affair, however, and I do not see why the Minister for Industry and Commerce should feel he is involved in that dispute. It should have been possible for him to have sought the cooperation of the medical profession, first, and of the pharmaceutical industry, in the second instance, in order to protect, not the medical profession or pharmaceutists— I am not particularly concerned with either of those interests—but the public who are the people most affected by any of the repercussions of an Order such as this.

I should like to ask the Minister why he did not take some steps on this occasion to try to find out whether the medical profession would assist him in this matter. He is completely in their hands because, unless the doctors agree to dispense, sell, order or prescribe the home manufactured drugs, then he cannot force them to do it. The patient is not in a position to ask for the home manufactured drugs and consequently the cost of medicine to the patient is ultimately greatly increased, and unnecessarily increased. Quite clearly, there are a number of these home-manufactured drugs which will be just as good as the imported article and it is merely a question of trying to establish the goodwill of the medical profession, to persuade them, in the first instance, that the home-manufactured drug is as good as the imported article, and in that way try to get them to persuade their patients that the home-manufactured drug is completely satisfactory in every way.

It is quite a difficult problem for a doctor to try to break a patient from one kind of drug which the patient believes is the only possible drug or the most effective, from his point of view. If the patient continues to hold faith in a particular imported drug and refuses to transfer his faith to a home-manufactured drug, then the Minister will not persuade the doctors to do that, unless he asks them for their cooperation. I fail to see why he has not done that because, whatever ill will there may be between the doctors and the Minister for Health, I do not think there is any such ill will between the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the medical profession and the Minister is very much dependent on getting their goodwill in this case. The job is hard enough, because, as I say, even with all the goodwill in the world, it is difficult for a doctor to change a patient from one drug to another, and when a doctor does change a patient from one drug to another, he has to be certain that the home-manufactured drug is of the highest possible quality, is non-toxic and that it has the standdard of sterility and potency which is on the label. Who is to assure him of this?

That is the other point which the Minister neglected to safeguard before introducing this Order, that is, to be in a position to assure the medical profession that, because of tests carried out by an independent body, a research standards bureau, the home-manufactured article is just as good as the imported one. If the Minister could assure the doctors of that, then the doctors in turn could assure the patients and all the mechanism of changing over from the imported article to the home-manufactured article could be smoothly and readily operated.

That, of course, certainly presupposes that the Minister, in the first instance, would have consulted the medical profession and got their cooperation, and would then establish some form of bureau of standards, an independent bureau of standards, which would be in a position to assay, test, examine and give completely reliable assessments of the quality, toxicity, potency and so on of the various drugs manufactured at home. Neither of these preconditions to a smooth and satisfactory change over has been observed by the Minister and I think that he has failed in his duty to the public to that extent. I do not think there is any doubt that, with very few exceptions, the members of the medical profession are still continuing to order the more costly imported drugs when there is a comparable home-manufactured article available, though, as I say, I do not know if it is satisfactory or not.

I do not blame the doctors who refuse to advise their patients to change over until they are certain the home-manufactured article is of the quality stated, and I should like to ask the Minister if he would tell us whether, in the drug list maintained by the Department of Health for the use of pharmaceutists in the local authority health institutions, it is intended to lay down that only the home-manufactured medicinal preparation, which is to be substituted for the imported one, will henceforward be used by the members of the medical profession in such institutions. If that rule is to be laid down, then it seems to me he is moving towards a direction, or dictation, to the medical profession as to what drugs they are to use in the treatment of their patients and it seems to me that is a very dangerous precedent to establish. If he does not propose to do that, then it seems to me he is imposing on the health authorities a very considerable additional burden of payment for imported drugs when there is a home-manufactured substitute available.

On the other hand, I think the Minister would have no difficulty making the home-manufactured drug acceptable to the medical profession, if he were prepared to establish a reliable bureau of standards which would assist the medical profession in assessing the quality, toxicity, potency, and usefulness of the home-manufactured drugs. In the final analysis, I think the Minister would have been very well advised to withhold the making of this Order until he had established such a bureau of standards, in the first instance, and, secondly, until he had consulted the medical profession and pharmaceutical interests. In that way, he would have protected the public from paying the very considerably increased sums which they now have to pay for medicines, simply because, as far as I can see, the doctors are not ordering the home-manufactured article.

Debate adjourned.