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Dáil Éireann - Volume 39 - 11 June, 1931

Public Business. - Apprenticeship Bill, 1930—Committee.

The Dáil went into Committee.

SECTION 1.

In this Act—

the expression “the Minister” means the Minister for Industry and Commerce;

the word “trade” includes any industry, trade, craft, or business;

the expression “trade-board” means [186] a trade-board established under the Trade Boards Acts, 1909 and 1918; the expression “trade-board trade” means a trade in respect of which a trade-board is for the time being in existence;

the expression “non-trade-board” trade means a trade which is not a trade-board trade;

the expression “district trade committee” means a district trade commitee established by a trade-board under the Trade Boards Acts, 1909 and 1918;

The following amendments were on the Order Paper:-

1. In lines 12 and 13 to delete the words “trade, craft or business” and substitute the words “occupation, or business, and also includes any distinct branch of a trade”— Aire Tionnscail agus Tráchtála.

2. In line 12, after the word “craft” to insert the word “profession.”—Seán F. Lemass.

3. In line 12, after the word “craft” to insert the word “occupation.”—Richard S. Anthony.

4. In line 13 to add after the word “business” the words “or branch of a trade.”—John Good.

Mr. McGilligan: I move amendment No. 1.

An Ceann Comhairle: If amendment No. 1 is carried, the word “craft” will be deleted and the other words inserted, so that unless amendment No. 2 is met by amendment No. 1, I will have to put the question in a somewhat different form. Perhaps we could take amendments 1, 2, 3 and 4 together, as they all deal with the definition and then put a question, so as to save No. 2.

Mr. McGilligan: I am simply moving amendment No. 1 because it was pointed out on Second Reading that certain people had doubts whether or not a branch of a trade was being brought in under the definition, and I am moving to have it brought in.

Mr. Lemass: As regards amendment No. 2 the intention in including a [187] profession is to make it possible to have a profession like the nursing profession become a designated trade and to have the admission of apprentices into that profession regulated in a manner such as that suggested in the Bill. It appears that in that particular profession, at any rate, there is need for some such regulation, and it was thought, when the Bill was going through the Dáil, the opportunity should be availed of for doing that.

An Ceann Comhairle: Amendment 1 also apparently covers amendments 3 and 4. There is no doubt about that. If the word “occupation” be held to include “profession,” it meets amendment No. 2.

Mr. Anthony: A decision on the word “occupation” would meet the position, I think.

Mr. McGilligan: It meets the position so far as nurses are concerned, but not dentists, as we do not want them in.

Amendment 1 agreed to.

Amendments 2, 3 and 4 not moved.

An Ceann Comhairle: Amendment 5 is one of a number of amendments in the name of Deputy Good, dealing with the same point. I think the point raised in the amendment arises out of amendment 6, which proposes to insert a new section. Our practice has been to leave over amendments to the definition section, and take main amendments where they occur in the Bill. If amendment 6 is carried, a consequential amendment must be made in the definition section. I propose to leave over amendment 5 and to take the discussion generally, and a decision on amendment 6.

Mr. McGilligan: I am not so sure that that meets the point. In amendment 5, Deputy Good proposes to delete lines 14 to 22 inclusive. That is to say, he wants to take away the distinction between trade board trades and the others.

[188] Mr. Good: I want to take trade boards out of the Bill altogether.

Mr. McGilligan: If Deputy Good's amendment 6 is beaten, the Deputy is then, I think, precluded from getting trade boards out of the Bill altogether.

An Ceann Comhairle: The Deputy cannot get them out of the Bill in the definition section. There are other parts of the Bill where they come in—in amendments 7 and 10 for instance. We can take them on the operative part of the Bill.

Amendment 5 not moved.

Section 1, as amended, agreed to.

SECTION 2.

Mr. Good: I move amendment 6:

Before Section 2 to insert a new section as follows:—

“The provisions of this Act shall only apply in respect of apprenticeship to any trade or branch of trade designated by the Minister after consultation with the Apprenticeship Committee appointed under this Act in any industry (hereinafter referred to as a Scheduled Industry) specified in the Second Schedule to this Act. Any such trade or branch of a trade is hereinafter referred to as a designated trade.”

As I pointed out on the Second Reading a number of very difficult problems arise in connection with this Bill. The amendment I have moved proposes to deal with one of them. Deputies are aware that the Bill differs from the recommendations made in the report of the Technical Education Commission. On the Second Reading the Minister was somewhat doubtful about that. I hope that since then he has looked into the matter. The members of that Commission had no doubt in their minds as to what their intentions were. Their intentions were that the Apprenticeship Bill should become a compulsory Act. The Minister told us on the Second Reading that the basis of the Bill was a voluntary one. My difficulty has been to try and alter its character and make it compulsory. I am not so sure that the amendments I have put down will achieve the object [189] I have in view. The amendment before the House has been taken from the South African Act, the Act that was recommended by the Commission in their Report. The difference in the method adopted by the Commission and the method adopted by the Minister was to some extent pointed out on the Second Reading. Attached to the South African Act is a schedule which sets out the different industries to which the Act applies. That schedule helps to get rid of the difficulty of interpreting such words as “business” and “craft” that occur in Section 1.

If my amendment is carried it will, I take it, amount to approval of the schedule in some form and that will have the effect of putting before the Minister the views of the House as to what particular trades should come within the operation of this measure when it becomes an Act. The way my amendment, if accepted, will work is this: that the House, having approved of the application of this Act to these particular trades, it will then be left in the hands of the Minister to deal with what are known as designated trades in the manner set out in the Bill. I suppose he will take a limited number of them to start with. After that these trades will come under the operation of the Act in accordance with the terms of subsequent sections. As to the principle of compulsion, what I would like to point out to the Minister is this—that the voluntary system has had a fair and reasonable trial. It is the system, so far as apprenticeship is concerned, that has been in existence for at least half a century. The system, as we found from figures put before the Commission, did not achieve the object it set out to achieve. In other words, it failed. I should like to give again the figures that I put before the House on the Second Reading of the Bill in support of that statement. It is set out in the Report of the Commission that there are 9,282 craftsmen engaged in the building industry, taking that as an example. In a return furnished by the Minister's Department it is stated that there are 961 apprentices in that particular industry in the Saorstát. I [190] pointed out that if we had the number of apprentices that we should have in that particular industry in order to keep it up to normal level that figure, instead of being 961, should be 3,304. These figures, I am sorry to say, were questioned by a number of Deputies, including members on the Labour Benches. I hope that since the debate on the Second Reading took place the Deputies who questioned the figures I gave have looked into the matter and satisfied themselves as to their accuracy. On that occasion I said that the number of apprentices to the number of craftsmen engaged in the industry in order to keep it up to normal level should be one apprentice to every three craftsmen.

If they consulted anyone in close touch with the problem I think they would find that while it may be necessary to have a larger proportion in some trades—what we call the shortlife industries—on the average, that is the figure approved by those who have studied it. I hope before we have any other further questions on that issue from those representatives that they will give us some details in support of their contention, if they still question that figure. It is a figure that I have examined, not for the first time, and I am satisfied that it is an accurate one. Taking that figure as the basis, we see at once that the voluntary system has not produced the goods. In other words, where we should have 3,304 apprentices in an industry we have only 961. That being so, I am quite satisfied that the voluntary system has had a fair trial, and that it is a failure, and for that reason, something much more drastic is necessary if we are to deal with this problem in the way it should be dealt with.

I am afraid in dealing with this question some Deputies did not realise the importance or the magnitude of it. Under the recommendation of the Commission, vocational schools were set up for dealing with the training of these young people, so as to make them more adaptable to industry. I am afraid, even in connection with vocational training, that the House is not aware—and this is a point that bears on the Bill before us, and particularly [191] on the amendment—of the magnitude of the problem now before the various vocational committees in the Saorstát. The Department of Education, under whose jurisdiction vocational committees work, has pointed out to them quite recently in a statement that there are 120,000 young persons in the Free State within the ages of fourteen and sixteen, and that 45,000 of these are in primary and secondary schools. The task of dealing with the balance of 75,000 is the task of the vocational committees. I mention that figure in order to give the House some idea of the magnitude of the problem we are dealing with.

It is quite obvious to anyone who has even looked into the question casually that if these Vocational Schools are to function, and to do useful work, avenues must be opened to give employment to many at present unemployed, and who cannot get into an industry. If we do not succeed in opening up these avenues to industry, then the money that we are spending on vocational education is not going to do any good. The success of the Vocational Education Act very largely depends upon this Bill. If this Bill does not open up avenues to employment at present closed, then, a great deal of the money being voted, and that will be voted in the future for vocational education will be wasted. Therefore, I say, that this particular Bill and this method of dealing with this difficult subject, is of vital importance to the State.

I am particularly anxious that in discussing a problem of this character, it should not be discussed in any sense as a political problem. I would like to see the views of the different parties given freely in order to try to achieve in that way the object we have in view. I would like to mention that it has been pointed out in a resolution passed by the Advisory Committee on Juvenile Employment in Cork—a very active Committee, which has done very good work in the past—that many of the boys and girls emigrated in the past, and in that way eased the problem, but they cannot [192] emigrate in the future, for reasons that I need not go into. That adds to the difficulty. We cannot throw these people who cannot emigrate on the scrap heap. We must provide some opportunity whereby their services can be availed of, if not in this country, in some other country. From that point of view I would like to urge on the House that I am satisfied the only way we can deal successfully with this problem is in the way recommended by the Commission on Technical Education, and that is through the medium of a compulsory Apprenticeship Bill. The underlying principle in this amendment is compulsion. Whether it will achieve its object is another question. I would like the amendment to be discussed on that principle—that of compulsion as opposed to the voluntary system.

Mr. T.J. O'Connell: Deputy Good in his statement referred to the necessity of finding employment for our young people in industry. I am entirely with him in that. It is essential that we should do so. The Deputy said that unless this Bill opens up avenues to industry it is of no use. I suggest that it is not by means of this Bill we will open up these avenues to industry. It does not seem to me to be a reasonable or a sensible method to put these boys into industry, and to find suitable means of livelihood for them, merely to secure by a compulsory measure that they will be apprenticed to a trade and learn a craft without having any guarantee that employment will be found for them in that trade when they reach the age for employment. Deputy Good talked of the proportion of apprentices to skilled men in a particular trade. I suggested on the last occasion that any figure of the kind would be a purely arbitrary figure, and nothing else. I do not care if the figure were one to three or one to four. It is an arbitrary figure and no proof can be adduced to show that it is the right figure. I suggest that the principle which should govern the matter cannot be fixed arbitrarily. These young people must depend upon the chance there is in a particular trade, having regard to the development [193] of business generally and the movement in industry. All such considerations must depend on whether there is to be an opportunity for the employment of all these people afterwards at remunerative work.

Mr. Good: Would the Deputy apply the same argument to the professions?

Mr. O'Connell: Certainly, if I could do so.

Mr. Good: I would like to see it done.

Mr. O'Connell: To some of the professions, anyhow.

Mr. Flinn: What about the profession of the Dáil?

Mr. O'Connell: I do not purport to speak on this matter with the special knowledge which Deputy Good and others have of craft trades, but it appears to me that the figures he gave in regard to the proportion of apprentices to skilled men are absurd on the basis, as I reason it out, that if five years were the normal period of apprenticeship there would be a completely new staff every fifteen years. That would mean that the ordinary life of the average workman would be fifteen years and that he would have to clear out then and have his place filled by some of the apprentices that would be coming along. That would appear to me, although I do not profess to have any intimate knowledge of these matters, to be absurd. In any case I do not feel that it is possible at this stage to provide a workable scheme on the basis of compulsion unless we go very much further than, I imagine, Deputy Good would be prepared to go, because, as I mentioned on Second Reading, if you are going to control the entrance of people into industry you cannot leave them there. If you force them, through a system of apprenticeship, into industry you must do that which is anathema to Deputy Good, namely, you must have a considerable measure of State interference in industry to ensure that the people you have brought into a particular industry must compulsorily be [194] provided with employment. Deputy Good, of course, will not go that far.

Mr. Good: There is no compulsion on any boy. You are only giving him the opportunity.

Mr. O'Connell: There is much more than that.

Mr. Good: No more than making a teacher of him.

Mr. O'Connell: There is more in the suggestion which Deputy Good puts forward. He said that the voluntary system has had a fair trial. I do not think that it has had anything in the nature of a trial such as is proposed under this Bill. He refers to only one or two particular trades. I think that the principle which is enshrined in this Bill ought to be given a fair trial and, if and when it proves to be a failure, let us try other and different methods, but let us then be prepared to proceed to go on with what will be the logical consequence of these things if they are carried out along the lines which Deputy Good suggests.

Mr. Lemass: I understand Deputy O'Connell's attitude to be this, namely, that he would be in favour of a compulsory system if a workable scheme could be devised, that his objection to the amendment is that it is not workable and would necessitate undue interference by the State in industry. I do not think that it is possible to devise a workable scheme, nor do I think that Deputy Good has found one. Although I am in sympathy with the idea of compulsion which Deputy Good is advocating, I do not think that his amendment is one that could be passed. Deputy Good's statement, which is based on the report of the Commission, that the present voluntary system of regulating apprenticeship is not suitable to modern needs can, I think, be controverted. Deputy O'Connell has asked that the principle of the Bill be given a fair trial. It is practically impossible to say what the principle is. The Minister has not shown his hand at all. He has not indicated any policy in respect of apprenticeship. He has merely devised a machine for regulating [195] the work of apprenticeship committees which may be established in connection with certain industries. I saw it stated in an article in a weekly journal that this Bill is a typical product of a Civil Service department in so far as it exalts the machine into a matter of policy and makes the principle something in the nature of a secondary consideration.

Deputy Good's amendment, in so far as it desires to introduce the principle of compulsion into the Bill, is, in my opinion, worthy of support. The particular method, however, which he has adopted, namely, of scheduling a number of industries and saying that the Bill shall apply to them at the discretion of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, is not, in my opinion, the best method. I dislike the scheduling of industries in a Bill of this kind, in the first place, because one always has the idea that certain industries may be omitted, and I think that in Deputy Good's list certain industries are omitted. The idea in the Bill is to have it apply to any industry which comes within the definition in Section 1, subject to certain steps being taken and, in my opinion, that is a better method. Amendment 8, in my name, suggests that the Minister should be given power to apply the Bill in respect of an industry to which he thinks it should be applied but in respect of which no application has been received by him. That would meet the principle which Deputy Good is advocating. That amendment, in my opinion, does not carry any of the disadvantages which attach to his. The main point we must settle is whether or not apprenticeship is to be compulsorily regulated. The present system, as Deputy Good says, has had a fair trial. This Bill is based on that system. We have conditions of apprenticeship in a number of industries regulated voluntarily. The Bill is to standardise methods of regulation and to give uniform constitutions to the committees, if there are such, in relation to particular industries in connection with apprenticeship.

The purpose of Deputy Good, with [196] which I am in sympathy, is to provide that where, in the opinion of the Minister, it is necessary that the conditions of apprenticeship, as defined in Section 8, should be regulated, that he should have power to regulate them whether or not those engaged in the industry want such regulations. We have given examples of industries in respect of which we think that it is unlikely that application for designation will be made either by employers or employees. There may not be many such industries but it is in relation to any such as exist that the need for regulation is most urgent. That is why we would like to see the Minister having power, no matter what method is adopted of giving it to him, to apply this Bill, where he thinks it should be applied and not to depend on actions taken by other persons in order to have it put into operation.

Mr. Flinn: I would like a further explanation both from Deputy Good and Deputy O'Connell. If the case made by Deputy Good, that in a particular industry there are only 900 odd apprentices when there ought to be 3,000, is well-founded and if that is typical of industry in general, then a good case has been made for something even more drastic than that contained in the Bill. That is where we are in difficulty. Deputy Good has given us an obiter dictum of three to one but he has not put forward, so far as I know, any basis on which he forms that belief. Deputy O'Connell, when challenged to examine that, said that it was simply absurd. As between the ipse dixit of Deputy O'Connell and Deputy Good I am not prepared to make a judgment. Neither of them is entitled to ask the House to decide merely on his obiter. Either of them has not put forward a case showing the basis upon which he makes his calculation. Deputy O'Connell calculated that on Deputy Good's basis the life, the employable time of a workman is only fifteen years. That is on the assumption that there would be no wastage in the apprenticeship, in the labour ranks or that there was no expansion in industry. Neither of these [197] two propositions can be accepted. There is bound to be wastage and there must be expansion. If there is not expansion then we are faced with the whole of our unemigratable population who will either have to starve or be a load on pre-existing production so that we cannot assume either of the propositions. In regard to Deputy O'Connell's estimate of fifteen years, we have no evidence whatever apart from the statement made by Deputy Good in relation to the proportion of apprentices. Merely as a student in the matter who wants to know on which side to vote, I would be glad if either one or the other of these Deputies would effectively show his hand.

Mr. McGilligan: Deputy Good has told us that this amendment is intended to bring in the principle of compulsion. I think he realises himself that it does not achieve his object. He says further that it is in line with the report of the Commission and he has said both on Second Reading and again to-day, that the report of the Commission was in favour of the compulsory system. I think that is really one of the reasons why Deputy Good finds himself in a difficulty. He has put down an amendment which he says will bring in the principle of the South African Act, but the South African Act principle is not one of compulsion. What did the Report which Deputy Good himself signed say? The Report on page 72 refers to the South African Act in these terms:

In the Union of South Africa under the provisions of the Apprenticeship Act, apprenticeship became compulsory in such trades as decide, under advisory powers vested in special apprenticeship Committees, to adopt the provisions of the Act.

That is exactly the system we are trying to carry out. We have omitted one part of it. We did not schedule trades. The fact that Deputy Good's amendment does schedule trades, prevents not merely compulsion but prevents the voluntary system being ever applied to a trade if it is not included in his schedule. The Report did not recommend a compulsory system. It recommended [198] something like what we have here. The amendment did not introduce a compulsory system but the aim of the Deputy is a compulsory system.

Mr. Good: What part of the Report has the Minister read from?

Mr. McGilligan: Page 73, paragraph 163.

Mr. Good: I think that visualises a compulsory system.

Mr. McGilligan: May I read it again:

In the Union of South Africa, under the provisions of the Apprenticeship Act, apprenticeship became compulsory in such trades as decide, under advisory powers vested in special apprenticeship Committees, to adopt the provisions of the Act.

That is not compulsory.

Mr. Lemass: What is the meaning of the next sentence?

Mr. McGilligan: “A trade designated by the Minister of Mines and Industries, on the advice of a Committee, becomes subject to the law.” Certainly an apprenticeship Committee is set up just as Deputy Good has proposed. Deputy Good proposes to establish apprenticeship Committees in certain designated trades, and then his amendment says that the Minister shall consult with those Committees, and after consultation the trade may be designated. Supposing an apprenticeship Committee which is established for the purpose of deciding whether or not designation shall apply to a trade says “yes” that is exactly the difficulty, I have not got a Commitee either of representatives of the employers or employees unless they appeal to me. Supposing a Committee which has been set up says after consultation with the Minister “we do not want to become designated,” what is the Minister to do? Deputy Good's amendment leaves it to him either to leave it undesignated or to go on and designate it. The South African Act certainly recognises that the consultation is to be more or less approved by the Committee before designation comes about. I think the scheme of the South African Act is definitely the scheme we have here [199] with the single exception that we do not schedule trades. Deputy Good's amendment schedules a trade in order to set up a Committee to advise the Minister whether or not the trade shall be designated, and so to have all the provisions of the Act applied. That is a limitation. At the moment I have the whole field of industry open to me. If I accept the amendment I am confined to those schedules, however wide and comprehensive the field may be. At any rate nobody has faced up to the difficulties or the difficulties of the compulsory system.

Deputy Good asked for compulsion on the basis that there are certain numbers of people leaving school every year, that these people are not brought into industry, that they cannot emigrate, and that they are going to be a burden on the community, but he does not show, and nobody has attempted to show, in fact it is not possible to show, that this Bill is a Bill with the intention of extending industries. That has to be done by other methods than these. The Bill is simply that when certain conditions arise we are going to see that apprenticeship of a particular type, better suited to present conditions, shall apply. Training will be given, suitable to the conditions in modern industry. The Bill does not attempt to extend industry. That is not part of its function. Deputy Flinn has remarked on Deputy Good's contribution to the debate that if there are less apprentices in a particular industry, and if it is typical of the industry, then something drastic must be done. Deputy Lemass remarked that the Report was a typical Civil Service production.

Mr. Lemass: That was a quotation.

Mr. McGilligan: It was a quotation which the Deputy read to the House without showing any disapproval. The comments made by Deputy Lemass and Deputy Flinn are typical of the Opposition in Parliament. Something drastic must be done according to Deputy Flinn. Deputy Lemass says: “Accept my amendment and if after two years an appeal is not made for designation, [200] the Minister may designate and have the whole conditions of the Bill operate.” What are the conditions of the Bill? A Committee is set up which will in the first instance draw up regulations with regard to educational qualifications and so on. Supposing after two years, if the amendment of Deputy Lemass were accepted, an appeal has not come either from the employers or the employees in a particular industry, I may not have been able to induce an appeal from the employers or employees after two years——

Mr. Lemass: The Minister said something now that he has not said before.

Mr. McGilligan: Leaving that out, it is open to me to induce it under the Bill. Supposing I have fallen asleep and nothing comes in, I may establish a Committee. Neither workers nor employers have moved in the matter and I establish a Committee. Supposing one or the other does not want apprenticeship conditions how do I get the Committee?

Mr. Lemass: How do you get it if one side wants it and the other side does not?

Mr. McGilligan: Supposing that neither party has moved, what am I to do? What am I going to do to establish a Committee? I will not establish a Committee representing only one side, even under the present Bill. If one side so vehemently objects, and if I see that they are not going to act, obviously I cannot set up a Committee. What am I going to do in the Deputy's case?

Mr. Lemass: It depends on the reason for failure; it may be that the workers are not organised.

Mr. McGilligan: Deputy Flinn says that something more drastic ought to be done. What could be done that would be more drastic?

Mr. Flinn: The Minister, apparently, misunderstood my remarks. I suggested that a case had not been made [201] by Deputy Good in so far as the Deputy did not give the basis upon which his own arguments were founded.

Mr. McGilligan: One of the Deputy's conclusions was that if there are less apprentices than there should be, and if that is typical of the industry, then something drastic ought to be done. We will leave that as a contribution to the necessity for compulsion. Deputy Lemass thinks that this carries on the existing system.

Mr. Lemass: The principle.

Mr. McGilligan: According to the Deputy, it carries on the principle. It will be seen that the old conditions in regard to apprenticeship, indenture, long period of service, etc., had no application to certain industries. These industries are carried on by people who adopt different methods of training to the old apprenticeship conditions. This gets away from the old conditions as we knew them, conditions that were distinctly a question of a boy being apprenticed under rigid terms, it being left to his parents or guardian, or a trade union, or between those people and the employer, to see that the conditions were carried out. The conditions set out under this Bill gave us the best approach that can be got to something intermediate, something between the old lax and rather bad system of apprenticeship and the compulsory system that has been referred to. We suggest here a committee and we get employers and employees, in equal numbers on that committee. Associated with them we have one or three representatives of the public. The public representatives will try to get both parties to draw up suitable conditions. Once the committee is set up, we make it compulsory that conditions should be drawn up with regard to four items and then we say that there are other things about which regulations may be drawn. By the setting up of this committee we bring about a discussion in a friendly way as between representatives of the employers and the employees, always with an audience of impartial people composed of one or three representatives of the general public.

[202] I think that system ought to be given a fair trial before people put forward suggestions about something drastic being done or about the formation of a compulsory system. It is open to me, under the Bill, to introduce representations where I think representations ought to be introduced. It may be that neither the employers nor the employees consider it desirable to have a particular trade designated. In such a case compulsion is no good. If both employers and employees are against a system, there is no advantage in going against their wishes. Our aim is to get both parties on a committee and associate with them members of the public, selected impartially. They can then try to get apprenticeship conditions drawn up. I plead distinctly for the terms in the Bill as showing a better appreciation of the conditions under which modern industry is carried out, and as giving a better approach in a conciliatory way to both employers and employees. As I have already indicated, members of the public will sit on the committee and endeavour to bring both parties together. This is much better than a compulsory system, which would only break down. No case has been made for compulsion, and compulsion should only be resorted to, if it is considered necessary, when thorough investigation has been made by the committee of the situation.

Mr. Good: The Minister says that no case has been made for a change in the present principle. We must admit that the present principle is a voluntary principle. I have made a case to show that the voluntary principle has failed to achieve the results expected of it. I do not think one can do anything more than produce the figures compiled by the Minister's Department. I have produced those figures and, on the face of them, I have submitted a definite case to the House. I have given the figures exactly as they were given to the Commission by the Minister's Department. Those figures bear only one interpretation.

[203] Mr. Flinn: Is the 3,000 figure a Department figure?

Mr. Good: It is the figure given by the Department to the Commission. I read the Report of the Commission and I gave the figures to the House. To say, in face of those figures, that there has not been a case established showing that the voluntary system has failed is to say something which is not true.

Mr. O'Connell: Does Deputy Good say that there ought to be 3,304 apprentices?

Mr. Flinn: That is the question I asked Deputy Good. The Deputy probably misunderstood me.

Mr. Good: Deputy O'Connell declared that what you want to provide for those people is employment. With all respect to the Deputy, I emphasise that you want to put these young people first in the way of being employed.

Mr. Anthony: Organise a continuous building scheme—a national scheme.

Mr. Good: We will hear the Deputy later on about a continuous scheme. I want to put the young people in the way of being employed; I want to get them into the different trades which are now closed to them. Will Deputy O'Connell, or Deputy Anthony, tell me how a boy, anxious to become a bricklayer should proceed? How should a boy anxious to become a plumber proceed? We have thousands of young people in the country anxious to follow some employment. Some of them, doubtless, have a special aptitude for particular industries. How are we going to get them into these industries?

Mr. Anthony: What are we going to do with all the idle people?

Mr. Good: We would not have so many idle people if those avenues to employment were all open at the moment. I would like to point out the difference between young people going into industry and young people going into a profession. Let us take the profession [204] of teaching. Is there any limitation to the number of young people who go into the teaching profession?

Mr. O'Connell: There is a very strict limitation.

Mr. Good: There is a strict limitation based on an examination. As far as I know there is no limitation on the numbers who can enter for that examination.

Mr. O'Connell: I would like to assure the Deputy that there is a very strict limitation. The number of teachers taken in is governed by the possible number who will be employed. I am afraid the Deputy has put his foot into it there.

Mr. Good: I am afraid that Deputy O'Connell is mixing the problem. He is trying to make it a little more difficult. The Deputy is evidently talking about admission into the secondary schools.

Mr. O'Connell: Not at all. I am talking about the teaching profession.

Mr. Good: If a boy wants to get into the teaching profession, and has ability, what is the obstruction?

Mr. O'Connell: The main obstruction is the number of vacancies that exist in the training colleges for primary teachers.

Mr. Good: I think Deputy O'Connell is satisfied. Let us take another profession. Let us take the medical profession. Any boy who wants to go into that profession and is not wanting in money, and has sufficient money to carry him through has no difficulty in his way. He is not met by the limitation argument or by the statement that there are only vacancies for so and so and such and such a number. If the boy wants to go into the medical profession that is entirely a matter for him and for his people. He is put through the course anyway. I want to see these young people put in a similar position to him. If there is not employment subsequently for them when they reach the end of their apprenticeship that [205] is their look out, but I want to get the opportunity for them. That opportunity is closed at the moment.

Let us take the legal profession. What limitation is there against entering that profession? None that I know of. There is no limit whatever to a boy going into it. As to the question of subsequent employment that is a matter entirely for the boy and his parents. He may have to go abroad, but he is enabled to go into the profession. He can learn the profession. That is all I ask for those boys coming from our primary schools and who want to go into a trade or industry. If a boy wants to become a bricklayer, a plumber, a carpenter or anything else at the present moment those avenues of employment are closed to him. I say that is not fair. As far as that condition prevails I am quite satisfied that the money spent on our vocational schools will not achieve the results it ought. The money spent on them will be very largely wasted because there will not be opportunities for those boys when they leave the schools. That is the problem as I see it.

As regards this other question of the number of apprentices to the number of tradesmen, let us assume for the moment that the apprentice is thoroughly skilled in his trade at 23 years of age and let us assume that the average life is 63 years. That leaves 40 working years for the craftsman. It follows from that that in every ten years we lose 22 per cent. of the total or in every 8 years we lose 20 per cent. of the total. Take it that we lose in every ten years 25 per cent. of the total. Consequently, we must train 25 per cent of our craftsmen every ten years or 20 per cent. in eight years. A boy starting at the age of 15 years would reach efficiency at the age of 23. It is a well-known fact that many of those following a trade in the country parts come to the city to be trained and when their training is finished they return home. Others following other occupations will sometimes travel to distant places for information, and five per cent. under that head would not be excessive to meet these contingencies. [206] That brings the proportion up to one-fourth or 25 per cent. Then we have further to provide for accidents, deaths and other causes which reduce the number to one in three.

I have been speaking now of comparatively long-lived trades. But we have short-lived trades, where these figures that I have just given will not be reached. That shows how the figure of one in three is arrived at. That figure is not questioned by those who have studied the problem, as I know, in other places. What I suggest to the Minister is this: That if we are satisfied that the voluntary principle has been given a fair trial, as I am satisfied it has, and that it has failed to achieve the object we have in view, then I think we ought to agree to give some other principle a trial and I now suggest the compulsory principle and that a Bill should be framed along those lines as we understood during the sitting of the Commission. The South African model was mentioned. There was no doubt at all in the minds of the members of the Commission that compulsion is necessary in view of the figures given to the Commission by the Minister's Department. These figures show that the compulsory system is necessary. The interpretation of the Commission was, and it is still their interpretation, that the South African Act is a compulsory Act. They recommend that the principle of that Act should be followed.

I suggest to the Minister that there is agreement on this point of compulsion and that this Bill might be re-drafted. I do not hesitate to point out the difficulty that one is in in trying to alter a purely voluntary Bill into a compulsory Bill. I laid bare that fact when moving my first amendment. I put forward that view. If we are satisfied that in the interests of those represented and in the national interests something should be done more than has been done, then I would suggest to the Minister to withdraw this Bill and to bring in a new Bill on a different basis.

Mr. Anthony: I am opposed to this amendment. One would think, on [207] listening to Deputy Good's speech, that an increase in the number of apprentices would increase industry in this country.

Mr. Good: No.

Mr. Anthony: That is naturally the inference that anybody would draw from the Deputy's remarks. Again, Deputy Good has suggested that some of those trades are closed boroughs. It might be a surprise to Deputy Good to find that I agree with him that there should be no closed boroughs either in the trades or professional crafts, but we must have regard to the whole position and not to take things piecemeal. We have, as a matter of fact, the professions very largely protected by the economic circumstances of the people. Whilst it may be said in theory that the professions are not closed to the ordinary people of this country, at the same time we do know that in order to enter any of these professions one must go through a university course, and take out a degree. To do that course requires the expenditure of a considerable sum of money, and I need hardly say that the majority of those who serve their time to trades and crafts are, in the main, people who cannot afford to take up a profession. I agree that there ought to be no barrier put before any intelligent boy in this country entering any trade or craft. I have always held that view, but I do not see how we are going to alter the whole economic position by suggesting that the more apprentices we have, the better it will be for the country. It is quite the contrary in my experience. I know that we have thousands of building trade operatives in the country unemployed. Will the multiplying of apprentices in these crafts increase employment? It will undoubtedly increase the number of skilled operatives, but when skilled operatives have no opening for displaying their skill what benefit will that be?

Mr. Good: What is the proportion of skilled operatives?

Mr. Anthony: I would like to suggest [208] to Deputy Good that he knows very well that all these matters are arranged amicably between the employers in any given industry and the employees. They arrange for the proportion. They arrange that the proportion shall be one in five, or one in three as it is in some cases, and in practice it has been found that that number is quite sufficient. There were some crafts in which it was found absolutely essential to close down apprenticeship for a time altogether, and Deputy Good knows that action of that kind is not taken without some very serious reason.

Mr. Good: I would like to know in what crafts did that happen?

Mr. Anthony: I will give you the facts—the plumbers.

Mr. Good: Not to my knowledge.

Mr. Anthony: I can give the Deputy the names of the firms where it occurred.

Mr. Flinn: Give us the particulars.

Mr. Anthony: I will give them to the Deputy personally.

Mr. Flinn: I appeal to the Deputy to give the information to the House where we can have it on record and where we can all use it. Giving it to me privately is absolutely useless information. We want to have it here where we can check it up and test it.

Mr. Anthony: I will give the Deputy any information required in that way.

Mr. Flinn: That information is no use unless I have it for the House.

Mr. Anthony: We all want to see this Bill operative and become an Act. There are many features in it which will certainly help vocational education at the moment. In my view as one who has had some experience of the apprenticeship system I feel that the voluntary character embodied in the Bill is one of the best features and nothing can be gained by the amended suggestion of Deputy Good which I may say, with other amendments put down on the paper by Deputy Good, seems to [209] be lifted entirely, without the change of a comma, from the South African Act. Deputy Good wants this to be made a true and accurate copy of the South African Act.

Mr. Good: That is the report of the Commission.

Mr. Anthony: From my reading of the Bill I think some of the most objectionable features have been put in and some of the best points left out.

Mr. O'Hanlon: I oppose Deputy Good's amendment. I think it would be fatal to the objects intended in this Bill to introduce the element of compulsion. So far as the Bill itself is concerned I think it is a very good one, but I can see results flowing from this Bill far greater than the question of the apprentices. In industries generally it is absolutely essential that the employers and employees should be brought in closer touch. If this Bill had no other thing contained in it than to bring employer and employee together it has a good deal to recommend it. I would like to see the time in this country when all industries and conditions of industries would be controlled by a joint labour board constituted out of employers and employees. When we get to that stage, and this is the first step towards it, we will have industry organised on a much better basis than it is at present. I have nothing more to say on the question. I served one time on a joint labour board. I saw employers and employees who had grievances one against the other. After a round table conference they composed their differences very rapidly. I think we are now making the first advance towards the establishment of joint labour boards in all industries. The Minister will have power to induce the employers and employees in certain industries to come in under this Apprenticeship Act without the suggestion of compulsion. I think step by step we will gather up the threads in the control of industry. It is better for the country generally that industries should be organised by those engaged [210] in them than by any drastic measures the Minister may introduce.

Mr. McGilligan: I would like for a moment to refer to an analogy which Deputy Good tried to make between professions and industry. The difference is surely a simple one. It is agreed by, I think, most of the people who have had touch with this matter that the proper training for industry can only be given in the workshops. You can supplement it in the technical school and the technical school will probably have come to play a greater and more important part as time goes on. I think it has been agreed by the people concerned that workshop training is an essential. If we are going to have apprentices trained for some part of their course in their employers' premises there immediately comes out from that a difference as between the training for industry and the training for a profession. The man who wants to proceed to law or medicine goes through the ordinary course of education at his parents' expense practically all the time and goes to one of the recognised diploma conferring places. No private employer is put out in order that he might secure his diploma. He does not interrupt a private employer's business; he does not complicate the number of employees that a private employer has to take. He does not introduce any element of discordancy into his wages sheet. All these factors are summed up in the point made that you interfere to get your training through the private employer's place of business in the one case and you do not in the other.

Professor Thrift: Engineering is rather an exception.

Mr. Flinn: So is the Bar and so is accountancy.

Mr. McGilligan: It has been said here that there were close boroughs. Deputy Anthony used the phrase in reference to Deputy Good's remark. I must say I expected to find, from all the rumours that I heard since I had any touch with industry, a great deal [211] more in the Commission's Report with regard to the close boroughs.

Mr. Good: If the Minister reads the terms of reference he will see that it did not come within them.

Mr. McGilligan: May I refer to one thing which must have come within the terms of reference, because it is reported on. On page 84 of the Report, where this famous table supplied by my Department is included, there is this statement:

“The proportion of apprentices to skilled men which is specified in certain agreements between employers and trades unions indicates the maximum number permitted”—I I draw attention to this—“and represents a proportion barely reached in practice.”

In other words the agreement as between the trade unions and employers, which is supposed to set up this close borough system, is criticised by the Report as representing a proportion rarely reached in practice. There may be other considerations that could not come before the Commission. They might have adopted that part of the Report had it come before them, but we are faced with the position that these closed conditions exist in some parts of industry, and the better way to get after them is by getting employers and employees, under the chairmanship of an outsider with two other impartial observers, and have the whole thing ventilated. It may be that two or three years' experience of this will show that there is this closed system prevailing in certain trades, and public opinion may be aroused against it by the reports that will issue from these committees or the attempts made by this Department to get the committee established and its failure. Then will be the time to think of some better approach to this position. That position has not yet been demonstrated. No one yet has any proof. There is a certain amount of talk about it. I think it is clear enough that something approaching that type of condition exists, and people attempt [212] to get that sort of thing right, but how far the attempts are successful and what is the vehemence behind that attempt I do not know.

At any rate a time for a better approach will come when we have tried to bring these people together. I should say if we do find that there are trades and businesses for which we cannot get apprenticeship committees set up because the trade will not allow themselves to be designated the approach may have to be different.

Mr. Lemass: Cannot that happen under the Bill?

Mr. McGilligan: It may happen, but we will see how far it will happen. It will not happen if people have agreed to form the committees.

Mr. Lemass: If they fix the standard number of apprentices.

Mr. McGilligan: Then we are up against a situation which we will have to face in some way. I suggest it is impossible to face it in the way of saying to some employer: “You must take on so many employees.” He must take them even if he does not want them or if it means that all his employees will walk out of his business. The natural reaction of the employer then will be to say: “You force these on us and you will have to pay strike wages to carry on the business, as our business is at a standstill owing to your actions.” The only other way of dealing with it will be we will have to look to see that technological establishments are to be brought to a particular point of perfection so that they can give training there instead of in the employer's business. I hope there will be general agreement that, no matter what happens to the young person eventually, whether he is going to get employment here or elsewhere, that it is better to have him trained in one sort of skilled occupation than not to have him trained at all. But if we are going to assist industry by trying to force people into private persons' establishments against their will or subject them to certain changes arising out of other employment we will have [213] to approach that difficulty but surely it is too early to shout about these difficulties until we have met them.

Mr. Good: We are up against them at the moment.

Mr. Lemass: They are in the Bill.

Mr. McGilligan: The Commissioners' Report used this phrase, “a proportion rarely reached in practice.”

Mr. Good: It did not come within the terms of reference.

Mr. McGilligan: I got a series of recommendations from the Commission with regard to the designated trades and so on. The paragraphs which preceded the recommendations give me certain information with regard to skilled men and apprentices, and I get below that particular statement that these things are generally ruled by agreement, and we have the statement that the maximum is rarely reached. There must be something in the terms of reference which enables the Committee to deal with that. At any rate it is there. I may be taking a wrong deduction from it, but the Report of the Commission is there, and the evidence tendered to the Commission is the main thing. Bringing the two sides together, under the observation and control of two or three impartial observers is, I think, the best system that we can devise at the moment.

Mr. Lemass: Could the Minister give any real reason for refusing to accept powers to deal with the situation which can be contemplated, even though it may never arise? He talked about the dangers of compulsion. He said you have to force a particular employer to take in more apprentices than he is willing to take. That danger is in the Bill. If the employers and employees agreed to have their trade designated, and if the Apprenticeship Committee is set up, and it fixes the number of apprentices in relation to each factory, and if the owners of the factory refuse to take in that standard number of apprentices, he commits an offence against this Bill, and is liable to a fine.

[214] Mr. McGilligan: Yes, if the people representing him have agreed to this.

Mr. Lemass: You are not going to avoid that danger.

Mr. McGilligan: I think so.

Mr. Lemass: The danger of workmen walking out on strike, because the employer endeavours to comply with the direction of the Committee?

Mr. McGilligan: The Committee will be representative of all the people.

Mr. Lemass: They are appointed before the regulations are made.

Mr. McGilligan: They may be but they are appointed for the very purpose of making the regulations.

Mr. Lemass: No. They are appointed under the obligation to make four definite types of regulations and with power to make others. A particular employer may have agreed to the designation of his trade on general principles without knowing the nature of the regulations that the Apprenticeship Committee for that trade are going to make, and when he comes up against these regulations he may find himself in very definite disagreement with them. That danger is there in relation to individual employers in designated trades. The Minister is refusing to accept compulsory powers because it may be there also in relation to individual trades. You may have failure to make a request for designation in a particular trade for some other reason than that neither employers nor employees desire to apply for it. It may be due to a lack of organisation on the part of employers or employees or to some other cause. What I am suggesting to the Minister is that he should take the limited compulsory powers that are conferred upon the South African Minister. The South African Act is a voluntary Act in principle, but the Minister has certain compulsory powers. He is obliged to act in consultation with the Apprenticeship Committee but he is under no statutory obligation to accept their advice, if, in exceptional circumstances, he thinks it inadvisable to do so.

[215] The amendment that I propose is that if within two years no application is made for designation the Minister may make a special order if he is satisfied that it is desirable that such special order should be made. He would do everything possible to induce an application from one or preferably from both sides, but if the exceptional circumstances continued and if he foresaw in that particular industry that because of short-sighted policy the supply of trained recruits was likely to fall short of the number required at some future date, then he should have the necessary machinery to impose the will of the community upon the persons concerned. I cannot understand the attitude of the Labour Party. Deputy O'Connell's objection appears to be largely based upon the grounds that if you adopt a compulsory system you will have an undue amount of State interference in industry.

Mr. O'Connell: Surely not.

Mr. Lemass: That is what the Deputy said.

Mr. O'Connell: I said that if you trained people you would want to go much further. I am prepared to go, but Deputy Good is not.

Mr. Lemass: Do not mind Deputy Good. It is Deputy O'Connell we are talking about. If Deputy O'Connell is prepared to do it later why not take the first step?

Mr. O'Connell: It is not the first step.

Mr. Lemass: It is the first step. I suggest that the purpose of this Bill is being misunderstood. Why have we passed the Vocational Education Act? Surely our purpose should be to provide a supply of skilled recruits for industry. If the sole purpose of this Act is merely to regulate the age of entry, the period of apprenticeship, the rate of remuneration, and things of that kind, then this is only a Bill of secondary importance. The main purpose of the Bill should be to provide the means by which we can be certain [216] of securing an adequate number of skilled recruits for industry.

Mr. O'Connell: Provided we are able to employ the skilled people we have.

Mr. Lemass: That is another matter. Deputy Anthony dealt with that. He commenced by saying that he was not in favour of the close borough. Then he proceeded to defend that position and to make the fantastic argument that because unemployment is prevalent now we should deny training in the skilled industries to the young people.

Mr. Anthony: It is a matter surely for arrangement between the employers and employees. The Minister has suggested that the close borough did not exist to the extent that the Deputy thinks. As a matter of fact, in the building trade about which Deputy Good knows something, there is an arrangement by which boys are indentured to carpentry by way of fee, where they are not the sons of carpenters.

Mr. Good: There are no fees in the building industry.

Mr. Lemass: I do not suggest that the close borough exists. When we have the Report of the Commission which says in relation to that particular industry that the employers are not taking in the maximum number of apprentices allowed by the agreement, surely that should alter Deputy Anthony's attitude. The adoption of the amendment would ensure that the maximum number agreed on by the trade unions would receive skilled instruction.

Mr. Anthony: We would have to examine the reasons why this maximum was not reached. The reasons, probably, would be that there was not sufficient employment for those already in the trade.

Mr. Lemass: The provision of employment for our people is a different matter. Is it the contention that because employment is absent at the moment we should deny training to [217] our young people and bring them up as unskilled workers to fill casual jobs all their lives? That is the effect of Deputy Anthony's contention. Is there any reason why we should not have them trained? The fact that unemployment is prevalent at the present time is no reason why the workers of the future should be in the main unskilled workers, that they should be denied an opportunity of acquiring trades at the time when they can best acquire them.

Mr. Good: That is the issue.

Mr. Anthony: Not at all.

Mr. Lemass: We are all agreed upon that. I have said before that the particular method of providing compulsion which Deputy Good suggested does not appeal to me. I do not think it is necessary to adopt that method. I want to see the Minister have the power, which he may never be called upon to exercise, but nevertheless to have it, to impose an Apprenticeship Committee with power to make regulations upon any trade in which he thinks the circumstances are so serious that he should exercise that power, even though neither the employers' nor the employees' organisation makes application. The South African Minister has that power and, as the Minister is framing his Bill upon the South African Act, he should not deprive himself of it.

Mr. McGilligan: I want to refer to the remarks which have just been made. Deputy Lemass's amendment reads: “Provided that if no such application is made within two years of the date of the passing of this Act in respect of a trade for which the Minister is satisfied that it is desirable that such special order should be made, the Minister may make such special order.” Am I to read into that that the Minister is not to make such a special order unless he is convinced that the parties want it?

Mr. Lemass: That is what is there.

Mr. McGilligan: That is not what is there.

Mr. Lemass: Unless he is satisfied that it is desirable to make it.

[218] Mr. McGilligan: I may be satisfied that it is desirable, but I may also be satisfied that neither the employees nor the employers want it. Am I to make the order then?

Mr. Lemass: No.

Mr. McGilligan: If I am satisfied that one of them is vehemently opposed to it, am I to make the order?

Mr. Lemass: If the employees make the application and the employers' organisation is vehemently opposed to it, will the Minister designate that trade?

Mr. McGilligan: Certainly not.

Mr. Lemass: Why do it in one case?

Mr. McGilligan: Am I to read that into his amendment? It is certainly the tenour of the Deputy's speech. If I am satisfied the order should be made, but I am also satisfied that neither the employers nor the employees want it, am I to make the order? If I am satisfied further that one of the two parties is vehemently opposed to it and will not co-operate in carrying it out, there is no good in making the order.

Mr. Good: What is to happen when the boys come out of the vocational school and want to get into industries?

Mr. Lemass: I can see circumstances in which the Minister could make the order no matter who is opposed to it.

Mr. McGilligan: Supposing I designate a trade and get some sort of a committee. It will not be a very representative committee if one party is vehemently opposed, and I think I will be left in the lurch by the people staying away.

Mr. Lemass: There is a Bill coming before this Dáil definitely regulating, in particular circumstances, admission to a particular occupation. Why should the Dáil impose by statute these regulations in respect of auctioneers and not impose them by statute in respect of some other trade, if the circumstances require it.

Mr. McGilligan: There are other things. You are prohibiting people from entering in that case, but in this [219] case you are forcing people in by a positive act. I am taking the circumstances I spoke of: an application has not been made. I am convinced that it is desirable that a particular trade should be designated. I am further convinced that one of the two parties likely to be involved is vehemently opposed to it. I designate it nevertheless. I go looking for my committee. Am I likely to get representative members from the two parties in the circumstances I have outlined? Supposing I do get them, and I get the committee to establish certain regulations. Amongst the regulations they establish is one with regard to the number of apprentices in regard to a specific premises. I go to a certain premises owned by Mr. X and say: “Take in so many people.” Supposing he is recalcitrant and says “No”? Supposing it is the employees who object to a certain number of apprentices and the employer says: “Certainly, but I know what is going to happen,” and the next day he meets me and says: “This is what I foretold would happen; this place has been blacklisted and they are all going out.”

Mr. Lemass: Cannot all that happen under the Bill?

Mr. McGilligan: It is very unlikely. It is less likely to happen where one or the other party has asked for the application of the Act, and where I have made a special order. Remember, the special order implies giving notice to all who are likely to be affected. Where there has been no objection raised, or not sufficient objection to make me withhold the application for the designation, and where representative members have sat upon a committee and established a particular number, there is surely less likelihood of that occurring than where I do this on my own, in the circumstances outlined, in the teeth of clear opposition from one of the parties.

Mr. Lemass: Must these Apprenticeship Committees be unanimous in their recommendations?

Mr. McGilligan: No. The application [220] need only be made on the part of one party. Then there is the procedure of special order which gives notice to certain people. I do not know what form the Bill may take, but suppose it is passed as it is. They must make regulations upon certain things and they may make regulations about certain others. The employer knows about these because he will have notice given to him. There will be no objection to the making of the special order unless it is considered that it can be sustained. In these circumstances I say it is very much less likely that there is going to be any trouble with even an individual employer than in the other circumstances.

Mr. Lemass: It is not impossible.

Mr. McGilligan: We cannot rule out possibility. In that possibility all that we can see is that we have against the recalcitrant employer the full weight of the group, including the employees.

Mr. Lemass: Not necessarily.

Mr. McGilligan: We have. There has been an application made; the application has been considered, and a special order has been made. The procedure under the special order means notice to everyone likely to be affected. The committee has met and established certain regulations, and these have been confirmed. When all this procedure has been gone through, if you find the employer reluctant to employ a certain number you have, at any rate, against him the full weight of a certain group of the employers and of the employees.

Mr. Lemass: Not necessarily. If the Apprenticeship Committee decide to make regulations in respect of the number of apprentices by a majority, with the employers' representatives upon the committee in opposition, would not the individual employer consider he would have the full weight of the support of all the other employers in that industry?

Mr. McGilligan: No, because it has to go through the procedure of confirmation. In these circumstances it [221] would be the duty of the Minister to intervene and to see whether he will or will not confirm. Clearly there will not be confirmation with the full weight of the employers against it.

Mr. Lemass: Even in that particular case it would not be impossible.

Mr. McGilligan: Instead of arguing on the minor point of possibility, I take the Deputy on the other point, which is the most likely to lead to trouble most certainly—the compulsory clause to be enforced in the teeth of opposition, or this other thing which is, I think, the root of this whole matter, that is the voluntary principle. You are going to try and bring people together and to agree on certain things. The whole lengthy procedure is to try and get their minds as one on a particular regulation. That is a far better system than acting against a declared opposition. That only leads to trouble. The trouble may have to be faced in this also, but, again I say, why meet trouble too early? Let us try this out. We can see what is going to happen. Deputy Lemass's amendment contemplates that within a period of two years no application is made. My policy is definitely going to try and introduce Apprenticeship Committees in as many industries and branches of industry as possible. On the point of organisation, if my division of trade-board trades and non-trade-board trades is left, the trade-board trades are supposed to include all those where the people are not sufficiently organised to be able to resist an attack upon wages. We get both the organised and the non-organised on the employees' side. The employers are, in the main, sufficiently organised through the Advisory Committees which I have at present.

Mr. Lemass: The number of trade-board trades for which there can be Apprenticeship Committees is very few.

Mr. McGilligan: I do not think so. In practically every one of those trades in which there is a trade-board you can have an Apprenticeship Committee.

[222] Mr. Lemass: You will not have it in the milk-distributing trade.

Mr. McGilligan: They may be a very small percentage of the total, but you can have an Apprenticeship Committee in every trade-board trade.

Mr. Good: May I point out to the Minister that the difficulties are greater than he visualises? There is a rather important industry here in Dublin, the bricklaying trade, and in that particular industry they will not allow any apprentices to be taken by the employer at all. How are you going to set up an Apprenticeship Committee in that particular industry?

Mr. McGilligan: How is it that that particular position was brought about?

Mr. Good: The trade claims that they will only allow as apprentices to that trade the sons of bricklayers who are at present engaged in the trade, and the result is that in that particular industry the numbers are reduced by half in twenty-five years.

Mr. McGilligan: I do not think the Deputy understood my question. How are employers in that particular trade being brought to the point of accepting only the sons of bricklayers into the business?

Mr. Good: As a matter of fact the employers of that particular trade cannot take in any apprentices. The apprentices are only those taken in by the trade; they are bound to the trade and not to the employers, and that is affecting the industry. It is as well that we should hear the other side in this matter. I do not want to cause any unpleasantness.

Mr. T.J. O'Connell: But there are apprentices in the bricklaying trade.

Mr. Good: Yes, but only the sons of bricklayers taken in by the trade. As a matter of fact no employer can take in an apprentice and as a matter of fact the apprentices are not bound to the employer but to the trade.

Mr. McGilligan: The Deputy says the employers cannot take apprentices. Why?

Mr. Good: Because the trade will not allow them. The result to that particular [223] industry is that the number of men employed in the city to-day is less than half the numbers that were employed twenty-five years ago and the shortage of employees at present in that trade is becoming a very serious difficulty.

Mr. O'Connell: Is that the reason for the scarcity of employment?

Mr. Good: Employment is so scarce because these men that have control of the trade have made it such a close borough that the output in that particular industry is exceedingly small. I happen to know, because in 1914 in Dublin we had four brick works employing over a thousand men. To-day three of these works are closed down, and we can hardly keep one of them open because of the competition of cement. If the bricklayers of Dublin gave a larger output we would not have cement houses built in Dublin to-day. In Belfast they would have none of these cement houses built because the bricklayers were determined to keep the cost of bricklaying down to such an extent that the cement could not compete.

Mr. Anthony: Have the builders' profits been kept down?

Mr. Good: The bricklayers of Belfast succeeded in keeping out cement houses, but in Dublin not a house is built of bricks at the moment. They are all built of cement, and in a few years, unless something is done to remedy this, bricklaying will be a thing of the past. It is these restrictions of the trade union that are affecting this particular trade, because boys are kept out of the bricklaying trade unless they are the sons of tradesmen. Why it should be I do not know, but it is restricting employment in the allied industries. It is all very well dealing with a particular problem, but I want to have this question looked at from the point of view of the mother and of the father who have three or four sons and want to get them into industry. You talk about all these difficulties created by other organisations, but let us look at the real difficulty—the [224] difficulty of the parent who wants to get employment for his boys. What is he to do? What are we to advise him to do? It is said: “Send him to a vocational school,” but when he gets through the vocational school how is he going to get into industry unless the avenues of industry are opened up to him and the barriers removed? Why should there be barriers in industry greater than in the professions? Unless these barriers are removed and there is more employment in industry we will not get over the difficulty by vocational schools. I want something done to deal with this problem. I have seen this problem as a member of the Juvenile Employment Committee in Dublin for many years. We are face to face with this problem, and it is becoming more serious from year to year. In Dublin last year we had some 5,000 new applications from young people leaving our schools. We could only find employment for less than 1,000. What is to become of the rest? Are they to be thrown on the scrap heap and given no opportunity? A lot of these will find employment in occupations that lead nowhere. We want the avenues to industry opened up and the barriers removed. We want this Bill to remove these barriers in the interests of the State, and I say it does not remove them. If the Minister could call a conference of those interested in trying to get some agreement whereby these obstacles could be got over, we would make some progress. But I am satisfied that this Bill in its present form is not going to help the situation, and the problem will grow much more serious than it is. I am anxious as the result of the work of the Commission and the assistance of the Department that something real and practical should be done. It is a pressing problem and calls for something to be done.

Acting-Chairman: The discussion on this amendment No. 6 has wandered over No. 8 also. They are in a certain way related, but No. 6 is the main amendment, and No. 8 differs from it in several radical respects. I propose putting No. 6 first. Does the Deputy insist on pressing his amendment.

[225] Mr. Good: As far as I can see there is no support for it.

Mr. Byrne: I shall support Deputy Good.

Mr. T.J. O'Connell: There is still no support for it.

Mr. Good: I cannot say that even the Deputy's support fills me with hope. In view of the expression of opinion elicited, I have no objection to withdrawing the amendment. Probably the discussion we had may serve some useful purpose.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Acting-Chairman: I think amendment 7 falls as consequential.

Mr. McGilligan: I think amendment 7 will be looked upon as an alternative to No. 8, but of a different type. Deputy Good simply proposes to remove a sub-section that would forbid a special order being made unless a special application was made for it.

Mr. Good: Amendment 7 is consequential, I think, upon amendment No. 6.

Mr. Lemass: I think the purpose of amendment 7 would be to provide that the Minister may make an order to designate a trade, without receiving an application from anybody.

Mr. McGilligan: That is what it comes to.

Mr. Lemass: I would like the Deputy to propose his amendment, and I shall support it.

Acting-Chairman: Is the Deputy moving or withdrawing his amendment?

Mr. Good: I feel, in view of the expression of opinion that amendment No. 6 has elicited, that the object I had in my mind to eliminate this particular sub-section could not be achieved. At least what I had in mind was that the Minister should have power in the event of neither party applying for the setting up a committee that the Minister should have power to intervene in such a case, and in the interests of the State set up a committee, and take such steps as might be necessary.

[226] That is the principle that is embodied in it, and that I tried to outline in connection with amendment 6, but that particular proposal did not seem to meet with general acceptance. If the larger application of the principle did not meet with general acceptance I do not see that there is very much use in pressing this minor amendment.

Mr. McGilligan: I am prepared to accept amendment 7. Amendment 6 has been rejected by the House, not so much for what was in it as for the principle behind it. The amendment set out definitely to establish the compulsory principle, that a trade could be designated against the will of either employers or employees, or both. Deputy Lemass, in amendment 8, provides that if there is no application made within two years, that then, if the Minister is satisfied it is desirable that a special order should be made, the Minister may make such special order. Deputy Good's amendment, No. 7, makes the same approach to that, but in a better way, because he simply proposes to cut out the part of the section which says that no such special order can be made unless application is first received by the Minister in the case of a trade-board, and in the case of a non-trade-board that application is made by or on behalf of employers or employees. If that is cut out it gives a little more laxity.

I have stated my policy, that I would examine the circumstances beforehand. Unless I found there was likely to be no definite opposition to this I would not make a special order. That leaves the position a little bit more lax, and means that the Minister could act, if he thought, for instance, that people were not making application because they had not the matter properly before them. That is why I much prefer amendment 7 to amendment 8. The latter postpones this particular thing for two years, and it also puts the matter in a rather contentious way.

Mr. T.J. O'Connell: If there was any guarantee that the policy which [227] the Minister has declared would be the policy for all time then no danger might exist in cutting out this particular provision. But if somebody else came along with a different policy he would have the power to apply special compulsory powers, and to make regulations, even though one or both parties did not want the regulations.

Mr. McGilligan: That is the danger.

Professor Thrift: Is it the Minister's argument that he could not go very far if there was violent opposition on one side or the other?

Amendment 7—To delete the sub-section (3) (Deputy Good)—agreed to.

Amendment 8 not moved.

Section 2, as amended, agreed to.

SECTION 3.

Mr. Moore: On the section, there is just one question that I would like to ask the Minister. In paragraph (a) of sub-section (1) it is provided that “the Minister shall by another order.” Should not that read “the Minister shall by a special order?”

Mr. McGilligan: That is a point that I had not adverted to, but I will have it examined before the Report Stage.

Mr. Lemass: Deputy Good has some amendments down which would seem to indicate that he wants to abolish the division between trade-board and non-trade-board trades. We passed amendment 5 which relates to that matter only in connection with the definitions. I was under the impression that the matter would come up again on amendment 6, but it did not.

Mr. Good: I cannot see what use it is to establish trade-boards under this Bill. Possibly the Minister will give us some information. The only advantage that I see the Minister derives from the existence of a trade-board is that he does not appoint an apprenticeship committee where a trade-board exists. I do not think that is an advantage, because a trade-board is appointed with a different object [228] altogether. It is appointed to discharge different duties. I was anxious that the trade-board proposal should be eliminated from the Bill. How far the Minister approves of that I do not know. I do not think that any trade union in the country would want to have the same representatives dealing with apprenticeship questions and ordinary trade-board questions. The mixing up of the two is not going to be any advantage to the apprenticeship committee or to the trade-board.

Mr. Lemass: Would the Minister enumerate the advantages that he sees will arise from the differentiation? Deputy Good's point seems to be that trade-boards were established for an entirely different purpose to that of dealing with the question of apprenticeship.

Mr. McGilligan: The apprenticeship committees will have as part of their duty the regulation of entry and the conditions of entry. My main point is that there is certain over-lapping of functions. I must do either of two things. I must abolish the trade-boards as they are at the moment and establish in their place these apprenticeship committees giving them the functions set out, or else I must take the trade-boards as they stand, and add to their present functions the duties laid down under the Bill. I have very good committees at the moment under the Trade Board Acts. They have been working very efficiently, and they are the model on which this particular machinery was prepared. I think it would be rather disastrous either to remove them or to reappoint them as apprenticeship committees. I would prefer to leave them as they are, and add the work of the apprenticeship committees to their present d