I referred earlier to the first item in the Schedule, S.I. No. 191 of 1971, which has particular reference, as can be seen from the explanatory memorandum, to the non-reduction of tariffs on certain products. The Minister mentioned in his speech that the negotiations on this matter have not been concluded. The Minister has assured us that the negotiations began in April, 1971, and in reply to the debate the Minister said that the difficulty was to relate Article 19 to the particular problems in relation to the industries concerned. He said that in relation to the worsted and the woollen industries as discussed by Deputy O'Donovan, he could have taken temporary action which would have given us time to alert all the organs of State —Fóir Teoranta, Córas Tráchtála and the Industrial Development Authority —get in advisers and do everything we could for these industries. His problem was, he says, that he could not fit into the requirements of Article 19 (68) the particular position in those industries at that time.
I put it to him: why did he not invoke paragraph 69 (2) of the Article? Here is a description of paragraph 69 (2) of the Article which says that the Article enables advance action to be taken where an appreciable rise in unemployment is anticipated in a particular sector of industry or region due to the causes described in the preceding paragraph. I hold that the causes described in the preceding paragraph, the removal of duties or quantitative restrictions—the duties were being removed at the rate of 10 per cent per year and we were in our fifth successive year of their removal, the half-way stage—were operating. I submit the Government, even if unemployment had not become as bad as it is now in these two sensitive industries, could have fitted the anticipated situation referred to in paragraph 69 into the requirements of paragraph 68. They did not do it and when they opened discussions in April, 1971, with merely the months of April, May and June to discuss the matter, they were far too late and should have been discussing this a year earlier.