I should be prepared to withdraw my amendment if the Minister would undertake to give further thought to the section as a whole. In my view, a number of aspects should be considered. I am thinking now of an accident of which I have had experience. It happened in one of the C.I.E. workshops. A man working at a bench cut his hand very seriously. There was a first aid box, the key of which was kept by a workmate. At the time of the accident, the workmate happened to be working some distance away. He had to be sent for. When the accident happened the workmate was engaged at his work and he was filthy: he was covered with dirt and oil. Quite obviously, it was not possible for him to attend to his comrade who was then taken down to the ambulance room. The nurse there found that all she could do in the circumstances was to bandage the cut and send the injured workman off to hospital. A period of three and a half hours elapsed from the time of the accident to the time the injured man got any effective medical aid. I grant that stitching was necessary. The point is that the first aid box was there but that the person in charge of it could not make use of it because, although he had the key of the box, he was engaged on a very dirty job—and it could easily be that by the time he had cleaned himself the injured workman would be in a serious state. Commonly, when an accident happens, they go to the first aid box and they find that, possibly earlier that day or the day before, some particular medicine or medicine appliance was taken from the box and was not replenished. The trouble seems to be that it is nobody's job to ensure that these medicines or medical appliances are replaced. It very frequently happens that the person immediately available to give treatment has not any experience and that no simple and readily understandable instructions to be followed in emergencies are available.
I think it is important that, as far as possible, first aid should be not only provided but should be provided in such a way that it can be readily available and made available immediately to the workman who requires it. There are so many fine points involved as, for instance, this question of the man carrying the key having his hands soiled that this involves considerable detail. Where a man is suffering, say, from a serious cut, it is the immediate care that is most important, not so much the treatment which he afterwards receives in hospital. I would withdraw the amendment if the section as a whole were examined a little closer in the light of the discussion which we have had.