I move:
"That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
The object of this Bill is to provide additional protection for the consumer by enabling me to make orders requiring that prepacked goods should carry an indication of the quantity of contents by weight, measure or number and that goods should be packed in standard quantities.
The protection of the consumer has, of course, always been regarded as amongst the responsibilities of Government. It is perhaps not generally appreciated how wide a range of legislation already exists for this purpose. The current weights and measures legislation dates back to 1878; it provides for a uniform system of weights and measures and control over weighing and measuring equipment in use throughout the country. The Merchandise Marks Acts, 1887 to 1931, make it an offence to apply a false trade description to goods and provide for the marking of imported goods with an indication of the country of origin.
The Sale of Goods Act, 1893, relates to contracts for the sale of goods and it sets out remedies for both seller and buyer where there is a breach of contract. The Hire Purchase Acts, 1946 and 1960, provide that in hire purchase and credit sale agreements, full information must be set out in the agreement document and in advertisements, while the right of the seller to recover possession otherwise than through the courts is restricted. The Restrictive Trade Practices Acts, 1953, and 1959, promote competition by providing for the investigation of restrictive practices in the supply and distribution of goods and for the making of orders in relation to goods which have been investigated.
The Industrial Research and Standards Act, 1961, provides for the drawing up of standard specifications, which may be made compulsory in the case of articles which are potentially dangerous.
The measures which I have mentioned are administered by my Department, but in addition the Ministers for Health and Agriculture and Fisheries administer the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts, the Health Acts, the Poisons and Pharmacy Acts, the Milk and Dairies Act and the Agricultural Produce Acts. These Acts provide for the maintenance of standards of quality for medical preparations and agricultural produce and prescribe labelling requirements in respect of sale of these commodities as well as poisons.
There is thus a wide range of legislation designed to protect the consumer. As may have been noticed from the dates of the statutes I have quoted, a number of them date back almost a century, and in fact largely replace still earlier provisions, while others belong to recent decades and reflect the changing commercial conditions and to some extent the changing attitudes of our own times. The need for the present Bill arises similarly from altered trading practices.
This Bill is made necessary by the phenomenal growth of prepackaging in recent years. In the days when the customer in a grocer's shop could watch her purchases being weighed on the counter scales, or in a draper's could watch so many yards of material being measured on the brass yard screwed to the counter, it was sufficient to provide that the scales and weights and measures should be accurate, leaving it to the purchaser to see that they were correctly and honestly used. This is just what the Weights and Measures Acts sought to do.
But nowadays, when goods are so often prepacked, either in a backroom of the shop or much more often in the manufacturer's or packer's premises, it is no longer practicable for the customer to check the quantity of what she is buying. If some dishonest packer were to make up 15-ounce packs with the deliberate intention of passing them off as pounds, it would be small consolation to the unfortunate customer that the fraud was effected with the aid of accurate equipment. New forms of protection are thus necessary.
The minimum requirement is that the consumer should know what quantity of goods is in each package so that he or she may have a basis for assessing the comparative values of competing products. The simplest and most effective way of securing this is to require that each prepacked package should carry a statement clearly setting out the quantity of its contents. Such information would not of itself, however, enable an assessment of relative values to be readily made if goods are packed in a wide variety of sizes. A shopper would have to be very good at mental arithmetic to compare the prices of 1 lb. packages with others which contained 15 ozs. or 17 ozs. Clearly, it should be possible to fix standard sizes such as ½ lb. and 1 lb. which would take into account the characteristics of individual products and the amount of each which it is convenient to sell in a package.
The Bill now before the House provides that I should have the power to make orders, subject to the over-riding authority of the Oireachtas, which would enable me to achieve these objectives on behalf of the consumer. I have chosen this method because I regard it as the practicable one. It would, in my opinion, be impossible to frame an Act requiring that packages carry an indication of quantity of contents which would apply to all goods and which would, at the same time, take into account the different requirements of the wide variety of products which are available to-day. Such an Act would give rise to difficulties, some of them unforeseeable at this stage, for manufacturers and distributors.
It is obvious that the marking of quantity on packages of tea or sugar is a straightforward operation as compared with the marking of tins of fruit or vegetables which contain, in addition to these commodities, liquids and preservatives. There may be technical difficulties operating in regard to the packaging of certain commodities which would render it impossible to ensure that an exact quantity was put into a package and, in these cases, it would be necessary to provide for tolerance. The Bill provides that orders may deal with matters such as these, and, in my opinion, they could only be dealt with satisfactorily after full consultation with manufacturers, distributors and consumer representatives.
The Bill also provides that orders may require that the name and address of the packer or importer of the goods be marked on the package to facilitate enforcement and to encourage packers and importers to comply with the other provisions of an order.
The Bill does not apply to prepacked goods intended for export because, if the requirements of an order differed from those in any export market, an exporter could find himself faced with additional costs and might even be faced with the choice of breaking the law or foregoing export. This dilemma could occur if an order specified that the notice on a container should be in a form which was not acceptable in the export market.
It will be necessary when drafting orders to determine the extent to which provision should be made for the use of metric units of measurement. Clearly, the standard quantities prescribed in the initial orders would have to be in imperial units but at some stage it will be necessary to make metric units obligatory and, even when the initial orders are being drafted, consideration will have to be given to whether packers might be given the option to pack in round metric quantities or exact metric equivalents of imperial quantities.
Before I conclude, I should like to make it quite clear that the Bill is aimed only at the very small minority of manufacturers or traders who either deliberately or through negligence mislead or defraud the public. Certain safeguards are included in the Bill to protect the trader who in all good faith, and despite reasonable precautions, may occasionally handle underweight packages. I am glad to say that representatives of industrialists and distributors have welcomed the principle of this Bill, rightly regarding it as a protection for the conscientious manufacturer or trader as well as for the consumer. I shall make no orders under this Bill in relation to particular commodities without first giving the interests concerned an opportunity of expressing their views. At the same time, it is my intention when the Bill is passed to press forward vigorously with the making of orders, and I am sure I can count on the co-operation of all trading interests in doing this.
In recommending this Bill to the House, I should say that I have in the course of preparation a further and more comprehensive Bill to protect the consumer against false trade descriptions not covered by the 1887 Act and, also, against deceptive practices in regard to the prices at which goods are offered for sale and in regard to advertising generally.