asked the Minister for Finance if he will arrange to have displayed at all frontier posts for the benefit of the public, a suitably large hoarding carrying relevant general information as to what travellers, entering or leaving the State, may bring with them and including any useful information to make their journeys less intimidating.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Border Post Notices.
27.
A poster listing the principal goods liable to import duty and the principal prohibited or restricted goods is displayed at frontier posts and notices on various matters relevant to cross-Border travellers are freely available at these offices on request. It would not be practicable to arrange for the display at such posts of a hoarding carrying all the general information on customs matters which might be considered relevant to travellers entering or leaving the State. I do not accept that the present customs procedures at frontier posts for dealing with travellers are intimidating.
While I fully appreciate that all the various bulletins, books, pamphlets, leaflets and explanatory memoranda the customs officials must peruse would not be capable of being put on a hoarding stretching half a mile either side of the Border, nevertheless I ask the Minister to examine whether the people coming and going, on holidays in particular, could be given some little guidance? This is done at various airports throughout the world. Why can this not be done at our frontier posts to the benefit not only of the local travelling public but very particularly of tourists who are intimidated by all the paraphernalia and their ignorance of the regulations which, as I say, would take them a year to study and when they have studied them they will still not know what they were all about? That is the type of intimidation I am talking about, not the physical kind we get when we cross to the other side a little further on.
A poster is displayed which lists the principal goods liable to import duty and the principal prohibited or restricted goods, which is the kind of essential information which can be readily displayed. The Deputy referred to what is done at airports. There is a different position there. Where there are red and green channels for customs clearance, there are notices which list the baggage allowances permitted. They would not be sufficient for land frontier purposes where the type of crossings are different from a passenger on an aircraft or leaving a ship. At a frontier crossing a passenger could be carrying goods in his car. Therefore, what is appropriate in an airport is not necessarily appropriate at a land frontier crossing.
Bearing in mind the additional confusion that has arisen as a result of joining the EEC, and the new regulations which enable goods to a certain value to be freely taken across frontiers from one member state to another, would the Minister have this examined because that has added to the confusion of what we may or may not do legitimately? Could I leave this with him and ask him to have it examined with a view to seeing if something could be done to sort out this problem and make it easier for the long suffering public?
I will pass it on to my colleague but I am not quite clear what additional information, beyond what is on the existing poster, the Deputy thinks desirable. If he would like to make any practical suggestions to the Minister for Finance privately, I am sure they will be considered.
Could I ask the Minister through you, Sir, and the House, if he is aware that the only information displayed at our customs posts in the normal course of events during the day, not even at night, is a big sign saying "Stad" or "Stop"? Surely we can go further than that to help the public and make their journeys a little less difficult?
If the Deputy were correct that would be a disastrous situation. My information is that there is a poster listing the principal goods liable to import duty and the principal goods prohibited or restricted displayed at frontier posts. If the Deputy is aware of a particular frontier post where the poster is no longer on display, I am sure the Minister for Finance would be glad of the information. If the Deputy has suggestions as to how that poster might be improved to give additional useful information, but without making it so long and complicated as to make it no longer useful, that help would also be gratefully received.
Could I ask a final supplementary question?
I want to deal with other questions.
If the poster the Minister is talking about is not visible to the passing motorist, because it is probably in the customs building, would he bring to the notice of the Minister for Finance the desirability of having this poster blown up in size and displayed along the roadways on the approach to the customs post?
I note what the Deputy says but it would be quite impracticable to have a poster which would be in sufficiently large type to be read by a motorist without getting out of his car and which would contain the information of detail that is required.
When he stopped.
Even when a motorist has stopped and is looking out through the window of his car, the amount of information that could be conveyed in type large enough to read is so minimal that it would not get the Deputy very far. In my view, the Deputy is making impracticable suggestions.
Could I ask the Minister——
I have allowed the Deputy a lot of latitude. I am calling Questions No. 28.