This Bill, as we said on a number of occasions, is fundamentally non-contentious. I hope the Bill will not merely be one for legislators and people who have a particular knowledge of the law but that it will in a very meaningful way protect housewives and consumers in the manner in which they spend their household budgets. I have spoken to a number of people, apart from my wife, who do their household shopping, in order to have a deeper appreciation of their problems. I have no doubt that this Bill will help them provided it is not too complex and legal. The relevance of a Bill like this depends for its success on the degree to which it is seen to be one to which the ordinary man in the street can have recourse. It is very important that any Bill which is for the ordinary man as against one which is exclusively for areas of commerce or industry should have associated with it literature which need not be a legal document but would help to make the Bill simple and clear to the man and woman in the street.
The average housewife would not find his Bill exciting reading, nor would she find it very clear at first glance. The explanatory memorandum, because of its many references to the Sale of Goods Act, 1893, and other legislation, is also a little off-putting. I would ask the Minister of State to consider having her Department produce a very simple leaflet outlining in clear language what the Bill sets out to do and what recourse the ordinary shopper has if he feels he is getting short change, literally or metaphorically, from anyone with whom he enters into a contract of sale.
It is very important and timely that emphasis should be put on getting the maximum amount of interest and support for this Bill. Over the next few months we will see a spate of consumer buying, and a great deal of this will be of imported goods. Imports are growing and it is very difficult for the shopper to come to grips with many of the problems which buying imported goods can produce. Some dumping is going on and it is difficult for a Government, but extremely difficult for a shopper, to deal with the problems which arise from the sale of shoddy imported goods. Therefore, it is very important that this Bill makes a telling impact on the public.
The only way this can be done, in my view, is for the Department to produce a simple leaflet and distribute it all over the country. Perhaps the National Prices Commission could incorporate in one of their reports a simple breakdown of what is in the Bill. Even that might not be going far enough because, despite the fact that these reports are supposed to be widely available to housewives, they are not really documents which are purchased by housewives. If anyone takes issue with this statement the print order of the National Prices Commission would clearly indicate that there is not massive public interest in or a very large scale sale of their reports.
If this legislation is to make an impact, it is very important that the minds of the people in the Department and the Minister of State consider how this Bill will affect the daily commerce of the housewife and the shopper. I am sure the Minister of State would not be happy if this legislation were put on a shelf and forgotten. I would like to see it being reviewed after one and two years to see what impact it has made and to see if more need be done to put its message across.
There are two ways in which progress could be made in this area. We have a number of consumer bodies, foremost among them are the Irish Housewives' Association, the Consumers' Council of Ireland, and the Irish Countrywomen's Association, which represent the consumer interest. It is regrettable that these bodies have been subjected to a number of stresses and strains in recent years. These stresses and strains normally arise because the bodies are not adequately funded, despite the fact that they seek to do a very good job in the interests of their members.
There is room for these groups to go a little way towards helping the Minister of State achieve the desired result. Therefore, I would strongly suggest that she provide substantial financial grants to these three bodies and any other organisation representing the consumer interest, to ensure that this Bill, and other consumer legislation which she has implicitly and explicitly promised, will make an impact on the public consciousness and be seen to be relevant and meaningful.
The truth is that we have more legislation on our Statute Book which is never referred to or invoked than legislation which is used, and none of us would want to be party to a situation where this legislation would join that little-used library. Accordingly, I would be grateful if the Minister of State would turn her mind to the possibility of giving substantial financial aid to these organisations so that they could structure their activities and employ the necessary officers or executives to ensure that they play their part in making this Bill effective.
If the housewife is not educated to what is in this Bill, if the consumer organisations are not structured and aided to ensure that this legislation is full and adequate, I cannot see how this legislation, which the Minister of State had already referred to as being a lawyer's Bill, is going to be meaningful. It would be very regrettable if legislation which had the unanimous support of this House were lost.
The Explanatory Memorandum sets out the pros and cons of this legislation and a great deal of it is extremely relevant. There are one or two new developments coming to the fore and perhaps the Minister would consider amendments to this legislation on Committee Stage, or later by introducing another Bill. Recently we saw a spate of auction-type sales which do not come under this legislation. There are other types of selling which in some cases are of a slightly questionable nature because it is impossible to trace the person with whom the purchaser is alleged to be dealing. This would tend to weaken the impact of a Bill like this. The few people who are involved in nefarious commerce will react to legislation like this by looking for a way around it, even if this means roadside trading, door-to-door selling or direct mail.
It is important that any Bill which deals with daily or weekly commerce of a nature which is in itself flexible and subject to changes in marketing, selling techniques and so on, should be similarly flexible and easily changed and not, after years of lobbying, drafting, coming too late to meet particular trends which are probably on the way out.
I spent a great deal of time in the past studying selling techniques. Marketing and advertising techniques are a science, not a game of chance. The wiles of that profession, and I use that word in its kindest sense, are such that the Minister of State should go as far as she can to ensure that her Department are sufficiently geared to cope with it. For example, we have 35 advertising agencies in Dublin city. Many of them do a very good job selling for their clients and letting the housewife know the wide range of goods which are available.
However, I have often wondered why these various agencies and some of the marketing organisations who daily promote products vociferously and strongly are allowed to operate without ever having to assess in any scientific way the merits of the products they are promoting. If, say, a retailer sells a bar of chocolate which is found subsequently to contain a foreign body, the agent who may have promoted the sale of that chocolate has no responsibility, either moral or legal, for the defect. The responsibility rests with the retailer although in practice a retailer could hardly be expected to unwrap each bar of chocolate and inspect it before selling. That sort of situation is both unfair and unjust. Responsibility in relation to the sale of goods should be distributed across the spectrum so as to include the various links in the chain—the manufacturer, the wholesaler, the retailer, the advertising agent and anybody else associated with the goods. I am not suggesting that each category should set up a laboratory for the purpose of testing goods scientifically but more thought should be given to the present situation which seems to place extraordinary pressure on the retailer, at least in the legal sense, while there is no pressure on the growing advertising area in this regard.
Those involved in this kind of advertising are strengthening their scientific guise and technique in bringing to the attention of young people and those who are not so young, the various products coming on to the market. The volume of literature of an advertising nature is enormous in the sort of consumer society that we have now. Increasingly, as basic needs are being met there is recourse to products of dubious value which in many cases we would be better off without. Therefore, the technique in regard to the sale of such products has to be all the more scientific in approach. But I suppose they are a means of keeping some people in employment and are helping in terms of the revenue of the economy. What is important is that the people involved in selling the various goods should be subject to scrutiny because selling involves more than merely the cash transaction at the counter. Selling can be at a number of levels—subconscious, pre-conscious and unconscious. Anybody involved in advertising is very skilled at aiming the selling technique at all three levels.
There is not much in the Bill in this area but perhaps this is intentional. However, it is an area of selling because in many cases the sale does not take place within a shop but has been effected long before the consumer goes to the shop. Consequently, we must ensure that standards of sale, standards of contract and so on are above board in every sense before the shopper reaches the point of parting with cash. Perhaps the Minister will refer to this aspect when replying.
There are three pleas I wish to make. The first is that the Minister set about the task of trying to convey in the widest possible sense to the public the impact not only of this Bill but of other consumer legislation which may be about to be produced and to produce in sufficient quantity advisory-type literature, making it available widely and if necessary utilising the schools, since young people now have a good deal of spending power. It is important, too, that such literature be made available to consumer organisations. In this way we should be able to get more readily an appreciation of the deficiencies that may be inherent in any such legislation. From the daily experience of housewives and, indeed, of the growing number of househusbands, if one may use the term, it is evident that there are certain weaknesses in regard to the alleged qualities of some of the products that are advertised. If legislation of this kind is not circulated widely, its importance will not impinge sufficiently on the public. In addition, suppliers, shopkeepers and all those involved in commerce in a genuine and reasonable way will not be given the opportunity of appreciating fully what such legislation involves. That sort of situation would also be contrary to the interests of the people for whom the Minister is concerned.
An effort should be made through the schools to incorporate some measure of consumer education. This is not happening in any real sense except in girls' schools in the context of domestic science although there may be some degree of consumer education in civics courses. Of course it is not the function of this Minister to be concerned with school curricula but it falls within the over-all context of making people aware of the kind of pitfalls that exist in relation to the consumer market. To this extent the Minister could co-operate with the Minister for Education in having legislation of this kind made known in the classroom because it is in those earlier years that people are at their most formative in terms of accepting this type of information. The buying habits of many housewives are now set and there would be some difficulty in changing those habits but every effort should be made to educate the young people in these matters.
My second plea relates to consumer organisations. These organisations should be given now the breaks and the finance to which they are entitled. It would be a very timely gesture for the Government to emphasise to these bodies the role they can play in ensuring that this type of legislation will be effective. I have in mind such organisations as the Irish Housewives' Association, the ICA and the Consumer Association. I am sure that as they have responded in the past, they would respond magnificently to a direct approach from the Minister to the effect that the Government would be prepared to provide sufficient cash for the structure of their organisations in order to ensure that consumer legislation is brought to the attention of members so that weaknesses could be detected at an early stage and rectified. We must remember that these organisations are doing work which the Government would have to do otherwise in the interest of protecting the consumer.
It would be very wrong if a debate on this legislation were seen to be in some way contrary to the interest of manufacturers, retailers or wholesalers. Each of these links in the chain need and depend on one another for the successful and fruitful transaction of their business. Consequently, I am sure that this Bill will be welcomed by retailers as much as it will be welcomed by wholesalers and manufacturers apart from the undoubted welcome that the consumers will have for it.
The only link in the chain that might not be very enthusiastic would be people who have something to be concerned about, but there is no need to shed tears for such people whom I expect are in a minority although that would be difficult to quantify. The Bill should be a major step on the way to ridding society for all time of the shady dealer.
Apart from the question of advertising this Bill massively and supporting consumer organisations, I would like to see the Bill open to flexible amendment and to review at an early stage because of the science and modern methods incorporated in selling techniques at present. Legislation by its nature is essentially reactionary. It reacts usually at a late stage to trends which have emerged. Trends in selling technique change very rapidly and are informed by changing market conditions in other countries. It would be a pity if our legislation was so inflexible that it could not respond rapidly to new techniques coming on to the market.
Finally, I ask the Minister of State to turn her mind to the area of the advertising agencies and the other links in the chain, some of whom do not seem to have any sense of responsibility at all for the goods propagated by them, while the retailer at least is legally responsible if he finds some problem with the products which he sells, and quite rightly so. The manufacturer, the whoesaler and the advertiser should in some way be joined under the umbrella of responsibility, or there should be some system which will apportion responsibility equally. It does not seem reasonable that a shopkeeper can be hauled into court because a foreign body has been found in, say, a piece of soap or a bar of chocolate, whereas the advertiser on the television screen the previous evening who propagated the sale of that article, or the wholesaler who sold the article to the shopkeeper or the manufacturer who has produced it, is less legally responsible. That seems to be an anomaly. The moral and legal responsibility should rest right across the spectrum. If it does the opportunities which occur daily for transgressions with regard to commercial transactions will simply diminish and the need for recourse to this type of legislation will similarly diminish.
I ask the Minister of State to try to ensure that this Bill in a very simple form—not as a legal document but as a four-page illustrated leaflet—would be distributed to housewives through various organisations so that it will make an impact and will be seen to be something about which we are all serious. I hope that this legislation will not just gather dust on the shelves of the Library of the Oireachtas or the libraries of other small groups who may or may not be interested in observing it. I appreciate that the Minister of State has given great thought to this, but I suggest respectfully to her that if these three steps are taken this legislation will be a real step forward in the direction of a consumers' charter. Everybody on this side of the House wishes the Bill every success and will do everything possible to ensure its successful implementation.
