On the adjournment of the debate, I was referring to the necessity which exists for good travel connections with this country in order to develop the tourist traffic. I pointed out how important it was to have easy access to this country. But, coming to the question of hotels with which we are more immediately concerned in this Bill, there is a great deal to be said both for and against the policy of public money being spent on hotels. If the hotels which the Tourist Board proposes to run are conducted as model organisations, then I think that, in the long run, the expenditure of public money will have been justified to a large extent. But they must, like agricultural colleges, be models, and I trust that that will be the case. I understood the Minister to say that it was not the intention of the board to run these hotels permanently. Am I correct in that?
Committee on Finance. - Tourist Traffic (Amendment) Bill, 1946 Second Stage (resumed)
That is correct.
I presume that the hotels will be run for a period by the board and then when they are making a profit—or, possibly, just the very reverse, but we will presume that they are making a profit—they will be sold. I should like, however, to mention to the House that when one of the countries with the largest tourist trade in the world, namely, Switzerland, some time in the last century was awakening to the possibilities of the tourist trade, a lot of hotels were erected all over the country. It was found, however, that the hotels could not pay off the heavy capital expenditure and therefore the promoters, private individuals, who put their money into these hotels, had to sell them at a loss, not because they did not understand how to run the hotels, but because the capital charges were such that the industry could not carry them. Therefore, the people who put them up lost their money. Other people came in and bought the hotels at bargain prices and were able to make a profit. I hope that in connection with these hotels which the Tourist Board are going to put up the State will not find itself in the unfortunate position in which the first hotel promoters in Switzerland found themselves.
The Minister referred to the fact that the misconception had sprung up in the public mind that the Tourist Board catered only for tourists, and I think wealthy tourists at that, and not for the ordinary holidaymakers in this country. I am sorry to say that, even after his explanation, I was not entirely convinced to the contrary. These big hotels which are contemplated in the West, such as the one at Ballinahinch, so far as I can understand, will be hotels for wealthy visitors. The prices which these hotels will have to charge will place them out of the reach of the ordinary citizen. In order that that misconception should not grow, I would say to the Minister that the board should publicise more than it has done what efforts it is making to cater for the ordinary citizens of this country and for the middle-income group, anyway, of incoming tourists. We live in an age which is called a democratic age. Whether it is or not is perhaps open to doubt. It certainly is rapidly becoming a middle-income age. Whatever possibilities there were in the past of making money out of luxury hotels, I think that day has gone. The number of people who will be able to pay high prices for hotel accommodation is becoming fewer and fewer. I hope this country will cater adequately for that class of holiday-makers, whether they are tourists or citizens of our own State.
In connection with what I might call local attractions, we are all aware that the climate of this country is rather fickle. That means, if we are to make a success of the tourist trade, that we must provide other attractions for the visitors coming here, apart from the natural beauty of our scenery and the various outdoor sports which can be indulged in, especially in the West. If we want to cater for the type of visitor who is not a fisherman or who does not take an interest in outdoor sports we must organise local attractions; in fact we must more than organise them, we must practically create them, because they do not exist to any great extent in this country. In fact, in the great majority of Irish resorts, whether seaside or inland, there is nothing whatsoever to do in the evening. There may be a local picture-house, but, beyond that, there is practically nothing. There are no local orchestras and no bands. There are very few parks.
Somebody said to me earlier to-day in this House, mentioning one very famous Irish health or beauty resort: "I do now know that we have even a proper circulating library." These are all matters with which the Tourist Board should concern itself, and I hope that it will do so. It certainly would have been interesting, and I think it would have been instructive, if we could have heard from the Minister what suggestions the Tourist Board is prepared to make to local authorities with regard to making their resorts more attractive to visitors.
I should like to refer to another matter dealing with internal communications here. I mentioned the necessity for proper communications with the outside world. The same necessity exists for proper internal communications. The tourist should be able to get about the country easily and to get adequate and proper information regarding travelling facilities. I remember an incident in which I was concerned myself some years ago when going to a well-known and extremely beautiful resort in Ireland. It is one of our best-known resorts but the railway does not run to it. The train stops about seven or eight miles away, and when one gets out at the terminus one has to wait for a bus which comes from a big city. Nobody can tell you when you get out of that train, or indeed in the booking office before you get into it, whether you will be able to get even standing room on the bus. As it happened on that occasion, I think all of us were able to pile on to the bus, but there was a very considerable element of risk attached to it. That was about 11 o'clock at night. It occurred, of course, during the emergency period when petrol was scarce but, as far as I could gather, at no time had there ever been a special branch line of buses running to that resort. One had always to step out of the train and take one's chance of getting on the bus.
That sort of treatment is all right when tourists are young and venturesome. They are then prepared to take risks, but older people—and it is older people who, in the main, make up the great body of tourists; they have money to spend on holidays and the majority of younger people have not— will not, if they can avoid it, subject themselves to the slightest risk or inconvenience when they go on holidays. I should like to place that aspect of the matter before the Minister because I think it is one of very great importance in considering the question of holidays in Ireland for Irish people or for tourists from outside. I think the Tourist Board realise the value of comfortable clean hotels and good food. I am prepared to wait and see whether the propaganda which is being carried out along these lines by the Tourist Board will have the desired effect of improving hotels which are not up to the standard we should like them to reach.
I am glad to see that the Government is interesting itself in tourist matters. I am not so certain that public money will not be lost eventually on these large hotels. With regard to the question of loans for hotel keepers, I think the very greatest care will have to be exercised in that respect because hotel-keeping is essentially a business and, unfortunately, in business generally the weakest go to the wall. If a hotel keeper is not in a position to avail himself of the ordinary means available to every competent business man in the country, I think it rather points to the fact that he is not a good hotel keeper and if he is not a good hotel keeper, from the national point of view, we do not want him to keep a hotel in this country. There are, of course, exceptions. There are hardluck people who perhaps cannot get money to build additions and bring about improvements, but I think myself all the good hotel keepers are able to do that out of the profits they have made from their business. That is the ordinary commercial experience in most businesses, and I do not see that hotel keeping differs so radically from any other commercial enterprise that what I might call the natural law changes.
Coming as I do from the West of Ireland, it is only natural that like many other Deputies I should be interested in the development of the tourist industry. There is a good deal of substance in what Deputy Dockrell has stated in relation to accommodation in this country as anyone who has travelled outside the State will realise. I am in agreement with the policy of the Government in trying to develop this industry. If they see that by lending a certain sum of money to the Tourist Board, it will enable them to bring about an industry which sooner or later will be of benefit to the State, I think by all means they should be encouraged. Whilst we have very beautiful scenery in the south and west of Ireland, that of itself is not a sufficient attraction. People who come here from England, and still more people who come from the Continent, will expect other things—good accommodation, decent hotels in which to stay, hotels wherein they will not be exploited or charged over and above what is a reasonable figure for the accommodation provided. That is very important. It is also important that our transport system should be modernised to a greater degree. It certainly should be more hygienic and cleaner. Take the case of a young lady travelling in mid-summer in a railway carriage. She may be wearing a white dress. If the seats are not perfectly clean when she sits down what will be the condition of her clothes when she gets up? They will be all black and smutty. Perhaps the insides of these carriages have not been cleaned for a month, five weeks or two months. Not only the seats but the window sills, the straps, the floor itself have not been touched for quite a long time. That is not very attractive for people coming from other countries who believe in hygiene and who have been accustomed to cleanliness. If they go into a lavatory they may find that there is no paper, no soap and the basin is in a condition in which one would expect to find a basin in a house in which the chimney has been swept— full of smut. Everything is disgusting not only to middle-class people but to decent ordinary working people who may not have been accustomed to a middle-class life but who have been accustomed to cleanliness. That has been my experience in travelling on Irish railways.
I have travelled the length and breadth of England, Wales and Scotland and I have found that conditions were quite different there. The conditions in a third class carriage were far superior to the conditions in our first class carriages. I suppose they may have deteriorated during the war but if so there was a genuine excuse for that. Certainly in pre-war days the accommodation provided in these carriages was far superior to that provided on our trains. Again if you went into a railway station in London, Manchester or Cardiff you would immediately know the time of the departure and arrival of all trains. There was an indicator to show the time at which each train was coming in and going out. You do not need to make inquiries, but, if you do so, you receive every courtesy and consideration and you get an answer. You have not that to get here.
If we are going to develop this industry we must have these things side by side with our natural scenery. We can add to that natural scenery. God has given us many gifts and we can help to make our country nicer and more attractive. We can encourage people to come here. We could help to keep places beautiful by putting up notices asking people not to allow waste paper and rubbish to be thrown about our seaside and health resorts. We can make our sea strands much nicer and our parks more beautiful. Then we could devote some attention to the provision of suitable places where our young men and women can enjoy themselves. We can provide good dance halls and cinemas, and good transport services. At the seaside we should have motor boats and amusements of different kinds. There should be something more than mere walking along the sea coast. People can get tired walking and they can get tired even sitting down. You can get tired looking only at the strand. You look for other amusements and, if they are not provided, you will not come back to that resort again. If visitors are not satisfied they will not return.
In our hotels cleanliness and good food are important factors. It is very important that a visitor should have good services. You cannot have that if waiters and waitresses are not properly looked after and properly paid. It is essential that they should not be overworked. In our swankier, first-class hotels some of the girl attendants are miserably paid. They are carrying out important duties and I believe that the rate of pay ranges from £1 a week down to 10/-. You cannot expect them to be courteous and to give good service if they do not receive adequate remuneration. These are some of the things the Tourist Board should look into.
While I will encourage the Government to give every assistance, I agree that they must not be at any loss. The only way they can safeguard themselves is by seeing that the industry is operated on proper lines. They should see that the Tourist Board will carry out their duties properly. We have a number of hotels that do not come under the Tourist Board and that have been disqualified. In these circumstances we must prevent foreigners from going to that type of hotel, which cannot be very clean or hygienic. There are very decent men coming to this country now, Allied officers and soldiers. They are complete strangers to the country and they do not know where to go. Sometimes they are accosted at the railway stations by people who tell them about their hotels. If they go to these places their impression of Irish hotels is not a good one. When they go to their own countries again they may not give Irish hotels a good name. These are the things the Government should warn the Tourist Board about. The tourist industry will eventually be the means of making this country more widely known and better understood by outside people. The industry will give employment on a large scale. It is only right that this measure should get the unanimous support and encouragement of Deputies.
In the West of Ireland we have such well-known places as Galway, Tourmakeady, Achill and Blacksod. These places should not be forgotten and the Government should do everything possible to help them. If there is a necessity for better accommodation, that accommodation should be forthcoming. Being an ordinary worker, I have not travelled the country very much and I have not the money to live in luxury hotels. I have travelled a little and I must say of some of the hotels where I have been that they are not up to the standard I would like. I am not saying that they are not good, but I would like to see them better and more in keeping with hotels in other countries.
The West of Ireland should receive as much consideration as places such as Limerick. In the West there is beautiful natural scenery. I have not seen as good around Limerick or any other inland town. The Tourist Board should be encouraged in its efforts. The industry will help to give employment in the West. It will enable many people to remain at home. Earlier we were discussing how to solve the problem of unemployment in the West and how to keep the people at home. This would be one way. We could help to keep our young men and women at home if they were employed in the tourist industry. The Mayo County Council, of which I am a member, are desirous that the West should receive every consideration. The building up of the tourist industry is an important thing and we should all concentrate on it. We have a great opportunity, which would not have come were it not for the recent terrible war.
Let us prove to Europe and to the United States and to other countries that this is a desirable country to visit. It will take many years before France and other countries that were engaged in the war will come back to normal. Their cities will not be attractive because they have been knocked down and there is nothing to see there but the aftermath of war. Providence has preserved us from the terrible tragedy that has passed over Europe and other parts of the world. We should avail to the full of our opportunity and do everything in our power to attract the attention of those people who have money to spend and who are interested in travelling. Our country has wonderful scenic attractions. We should do everything to encourage people here to view them. We should give them decent service at a reasonable cost and then we will be able to put this country properly on the map.
There are many aspects from which one may approach this question of development which is envisaged in the Bill. I was very pleased to hear the Minister stress that the primary purpose of the Irish Tourist Board is to provide amenities and suitable holiday facilities for our own people. If we are to approach the problem from that angle, the first thing we ought to consider is what can be done with the big centres of population under this Bill. At the present time a reasonable holiday in an hotel is beyond the reach financially of most workers and middle-class people. They cannot undertake the expense of a holiday in any of the modern hotels. Other facilities must be provided if they are to avail of holidays. The next thing is to provide within reasonable distance of the cities and towns such transport and attractions as will serve those who go away for a day's outing.
Do you think that is what you are voting money for in this Bill? Indeed you are not.
I am criticising that aspect. Take the city from which I come. Most of the ordinary people go for a holiday on Sundays because they cannot afford, nor have they the facilities, to spend a longer holiday away from home. Take the whole sea coast from Youghal to Glengariff. Mention has been made of Garryvoe and the Irish College there. I think the Tourist Board made a good bargain there, seeing that they got a mortgage on the whole place for £2,500 at 5 per cent. That was not a bad bargain. Before reaching Glengariff one passes Crosshaven, Cobh, Kinsale, and Courtmacsherry, which, in former days, were excursion centres from Cork. Nothing has been done to improve the existing state of affairs in these places. I am sure the same applies elsewhere. No doubt a good deal has been attempted, but it would be a false approach to think that the Irish Tourist Board could at one jump solve a problem which has developed for years. I do not wish to approach it from that end or to criticise the board too severely. At the same time, I say that workers in the cities and towns are the people for whom special facilities should be provided. There should be good transport and reasonable development within reasonable distances, so that transport would not absorb the whole of the holiday money. These are things that ought to receive attention at the outset. I do not think they are dealt with in this Bill. It is all very fine to speak about going long distances to view scenery, but certain families only can afford to do that. The Tourist Board in my opinion is not getting down sufficiently to the most serious problem. Looking at it from the point of view of development, it is all right to provide hotels for those who can afford to pay high sums, but we are doing very little to provide holiday accommodation for the more humble sections of our people.
The development of inland fisheries has been mentioned. That would provide a sporting holiday perhaps for some of our people as well as for those from abroad. These fisheries have been very much neglected during the emergency. I do not know whether anything has been done to improve them. While I do not want to find fault with the Minister, because I have not sufficient knowledge of this subject, I think it would be far better, and more productive in the long run, to cater for the humbler sections than to provide hot-water swimming pools in Youghal or developments of that kind. I look at the matter from that angle. I think it is the angle from which it should be approached. We are told that the board is not out to embark on competition with people at present engaged in catering for the tourist industry, but to develop areas in which there has been very little development and to aspects which would make these places attractive to tourists.
Very big sums have been mentioned in connection with these developments, for instance, at Tramore. It may be all right to spend these sums over a term of years, but I doubt if it is a wise policy to concentrate on such centres and to spend huge sums of money without having a development of the housing problem to cater for those on holiday in the summer months. It may be said that I am arguing against myself because Tramore is within a reasonable distance from Waterford but I consider that sums spent in certain centres are unduly large.
I do not agree with Deputy Cafferky's views on transport. In some instances fault may be found but considering the difficulties I think there is a reasonably good transport service and that what is there is clean and comfortable to a degree. There is not sufficient of it and what is there is too expensive. That is the principal fault I have to find with it. Nobody wants a policy of stand still. We want progress but the thing is to have progress on the right lines. As far as the Tourist Board's developments in that direction go, I am sure it will have the support of the House. In the past the Minister saw ahead of time on more occasions than one but perhaps people were inclined, as I am, to criticise the expenditure of money on certain developments. Afterwards, we saw that the Minister was right and that he was more farseeing than we were. These are certain of the criticisms I have to offer in regard to this Bill and the developments it foreshadows that we would like to bring to the attention of the Minister.
I would like to welcome this whole Bill with the enthusiasm that Deputy McCarthy welcomed it and very little more. I think the remarks he applied to the transport situation would apply to this Bill —we have not very much in the way of development and what we have is too dear. What we are faced with in this measure is the voting of sufficient extra moneys to enable the Tourist Board to have at its disposal £1,250,000. What for? Deputy McCarthy criticised it on the basis that it is going to cater for luxury visitors and not the population here. That is sound criticism. It was said a long time ago that the eyes of the fool are on the ends of the earth. We had many fools here and it was about time to focus our eyes on the natives and their needs. What is the board that we are asked to vote £1,250,000 for? It is a board that has been criticised by a commission that was set up by the present Government as a board without a single person on it who represents the hotel industry. I go further and say that there is not a single person on it who has any experience of hotels.
There is no one on it who knows anythink about the running of hotels. I doubt if there is anyone on the board who has any knowledge of any language other than English and possibly Irish. There is no one on the board with experience except the chairman who took a trip at the public expense to America. He knows nothing about hotel-keeping; he never had anything to do with it, and I doubt if he gained any experience in that connection.
We have found it very hard to get from anybody connected with this whole business what the remuneration of the people on the board is, or what their qualifications might be. I think we are entitled to conclude from the secrecy which surrounded their movements that their qualifications did not bear examination, and that their experience does not bear any investigation. We are going to give them £1,250,000—an extra £600,000, and for what? To encourage tourists to come to this country. What have we to offer tourists, or what has the new Tourist Board to offer them? Has it anything better to offer them than what the original hotel proprietors had who tried to cater for tourists to this country? The members of this board have no extra fund of experience to draw upon. They have no special talent. They have not travelled, except one of them who made a certain visit to find out what is done in other countries. They have nothing to add that would encourage the development of tourism in this country on decent lines.
There is a motion on the Order Paper in my name and that of Deputy Mulcahy asking for certain information which should be put up annually. We have got some of it to-day. It took this motion to get it, and it will take some time to digest it. What we have got does not make me feel that the prospect is any more attractive than it was when I was without the information. We have had hotels in this country. There are certain things that the tourist might regard as suitable for his pleasure and amusement and, possibly, his cultural education if he came here. Are these things going to be bettered by the particular group that the Minister has associated with this board? I see no reason for believing that they are. We heard to-day in connection with certain places that hotels have been bought for large sums of money. I would like to find out what particular profit these hotels showed before they were bought over and what money is going to be put into them, what improvements are going to be made in them, and what is their future prospect. Will these be any better than when the hotels were in private hands? I object entirely to the State running in where other people have been doing their best, where, with limited resources either as regards accommodation or attractions for tourists, a certain good had been done.
I understand that, in connection with an area near the city, a sum of £14,000 is being spent. Whether that has been spent on a hotel, or on some property adjoining a hotel, I do not know. Let us take that as an example, that £14,000 has been given for some property. Who owned it, and what profit was being made on it? Was it being run at a profit, and if it was not, is this board likely to be able to run it at a profit, or is the view taken that we are going to pay just for the edification of a lot of tourists? What do we want tourists for? Is it to show them the beauties of the country and take them around at our expense, or is it that we want to give them a benefit they will approve of and will seek to buy at an economic rate?
What hope is there that a board, such as this, will make a better job of this than people who have been in the hotel business all their lives? What does the Minister know about the hotel business? He does not pretend to know anything about it. The civil servants, to whom he goes for advice, never ran a hotel in their lives, and cannot be expected to know anything about the business, while the group associated with him in this are significantly devoid of either experience or information in connection with the running of the tourist industry or of hotels. What do they know of the amusements that people who come here may desire? What examination has been made of the foreigners whom we are seeking to attract here? In what better way is this board likely to cater for the amusement and the education of people who come here than the ordinary hotel proprietors of the country? The Pope, in a late Encyclical, has said that "What the individual man can do by himself and by his own strength should not be taken from him and assigned to the community." Have the hotel proprietors shown themselves to be inefficient in any way? These are some points that should be answered.
It should be remembered that, in voting this sum of money to this board, the board is not to be accountable in detail for it to the Comptroller and Auditor-General. In other words, it is not going to be put through the ordinary examination that any Department of State is put through. It is simply to get the money to spend it in whatever way it likes. We did extract from the Minister the information that it will produce a report. The report for 1944 stated that it had a lot of development schemes, but that these were unspecified. We all remember what happened in England— the big speculation that was there in what came to be known as the great South Sea Bubble. One of the projects for which money was gathered in in those days was in relation to what a group of people said was the development of a project "which shall be hereafter specified". That was in the days of the great bubble companies when any amount of money was lost. Here we find a Tourist Board saying that it has a lot of development schemes, but that they are unspecified, and must remain unspecified because it is not in the public interest even to disclose the identity of the resorts that are going to be developed by it. That is the nearest thing to asking people to subscribe towards a project the details of which "shall be hereafter specified".
Deputy McCarthy, after condemning the scheme, said that, nevertheless, we should trust the Minister, do the various things enumerated, hope for the best, and vote the money. I do not mind voting money even as a gamble, but let us have some regard to the form of how those people disposed themselves in other positions. What is the form of those people who have been put in to run this particular association? Anything that I know about them is not to their credit as people who would be asked to dispose of £1,250,000 of public money in a business in which other people had tried to make their livelihood and failed. In that situation, how can we hope that people of unspecified qualifications will make any better success of it, especially when they know they have public money at their disposal and are not going to be asked to account in detail for it to the Comptroller and Auditor-General? How can we expect the same endeavour from them as one would expect from people who had invested their own money in the business and knew that if the investment was not a success their substance was gone?
I object to this being done in the way that it is being done. I do not mind having a gamble even to the extent of £1,250,000 of public money if it makes for the development of the country. As a public representative, I want to be told what the schemes of developments are and who the people from whom properties have been taken over are. I want to be told also how those private people have done their job and if they have failed. I would also like to know if an analysis has been made of the cause of their failure, and whether this board can do any better under the same conditions. Until all that information has been given to the House I do not think that we ought to be asked to vote even an extra penny for this board.
Deputy McCarthy raised another point. What is the purpose of the whole board? In addition to the public money that is being asked for here other public moneys have been voted. About the beginning of this month a statement appeared in the daily newspapers to the effect that the Commissioner for County Dublin had voted £25,000 for sewer extension development in the Baldoyle and Portmarnock area, including the property of St. Marnock's, which now belongs to the Irish Tourist Board. That £25,000 will fall on the ratepayers of the County Dublin, but it would not have to be provided if that property were still in private hands. Is that right?
Deputy McCarthy should remember that not merely will there be this vote of £1,250,000, but that the ratepayers in other areas of the country will be asked to provide additional moneys to assist in the development of those areas. What is the purpose of all that? Except what the Minister gave, the only other information we have is that which came from the chairman of the board when he was in America. When he came home he said, speaking of plans, that it would be unwise to specify them, or to reveal the identity of the resorts which were to be developed. But when he went to America he did reveal some of these matters and when he came home he gave the public a little more information in detail. It was quite clear that the main object, so far as that gentleman was concerned, was the luxury hotel business.
Deputy McCarthy is very anxious about what is to be done to cater for the amusement requirements of the natives of this country. I think we should attend to that. Possible people will have read the article in the Irish Independent of the 27th April, in which a very careful analysis was made of the most recent publication of the Statistics Department in relation to National Income and Expenditure. There is one significant figure I think we should attend to in connection with tourist development. We have here a 3,000,000 population. They are not all earning; some of them are children who could not be expected to earn; some of them are people gone beyond the time when they might earn, though their pensions and emoluments are accounted in the national income; there are people attending to home duties and who in that connection are not earning money. We may take it that half the population is earning, that is, 1,500,000 getting moneys from some sort of service they give to the community, out of which they have to live and have to support the other 1,500,000. This publication divides the people into income groups—the first group is of people who get from nothing to £150, £3 a week and under; then you come up by £100 jumps to £250, £350 and so on, to the surtax classes and the £10,000 a year men. A significant figure emerges, that if we divide this population into those who get £150 and under and those others who get over £150, we find that the £150 group includes 198,000 of our population. That is, less than 200,000 people out of 3,000,000—or, if you take all the gainfully occupied, 1,500,000— are earning £3 a week. What is the good of the luxury hotel, I ask Deputy McCarthy, if all but 200,000 in the community are on a family wage level of £150 or under?
Then we are going to vote £1,250,000 for luxury hotels for the benefit of the big people who will come in from the other side. That is what we are solemnly asked to do. We are asked to allow this board to take over hotels, buildings, racecourses, cinemas and lands. They have recently become proprietors, I understand, of a golf links. Deputy McCarthy may well ask what is being thought of the ordinary person in the community, the people who are not of the 198,000 and who have to support themselves, their wives and families on less than £3 a week. When you get that picture, you get the proper framework in which to discuss this Bill.
What are we going to do in the immediate future? This is supposed to be a long-term plan. We are going to get tourists here, entice them here by bacon, eggs, butter and beefsteaks immediately, in the hope that, if they come over here, they will be attracted, when half gorged, by our beautiful scenery and, in the years hence when they are able to get food at home, they will remember the scenery and forget the butter, bacon, eggs and beefsteaks. We will get a grand crop of tourists then to come over here, to look at what? At the Wicklow Hills? At the resorts Deputy McCarthy talks about round the coast of Cork? Were they not catered for before? Did they not come in in some numbers, did they not come in in sufficient numbers, to enable private people, occupied in the way of private enterprise, to make money? Is the scenery going to be improved by the Tourist Board? What is the least benefit from this? I can see none.
I can see two immediate disadvantages to this country. Firstly, in the next year and a half, the people who come here certainly are going to promulgate, so far as they are concerned, that this is a country living on the fat of the land. I do not know that that is the position we want to have placed in the eyes of starving Europe. We certainly do not want that to be placarded. That is a temporary matter and we can get over it. What is the other immediate disadvantage? These people are going to come to spend money, they are going to put up our prices, going to do even those who can afford to go to the hotels out of the reservations the people tried to make in those hotels. That has been the fate of many people to my knowledge, revealed to them in the last fortnight or three weeks. They are going to come in and eat all these foodstuffs, and they will not have much time to admire the scenery. It is the same as if we exported an extra amount of our bacon, eggs, butter and beefsteaks. For what? For more credit, more goods sent on tick to the other side.
I talked of this last year and was derided for my talk, but quite a number of people who laughed at the particular remarks I made last July are rather definitely approving of those comments now, since they find themselves suffering in person from the increased prices and lack of accommodation for themselves, to enjoy the little bit of amusement they felt they ought to have and that they were entitled to get and which has been crushed out by the Northern Ireland people and by the English, Welsh and Scotch folk who come here. What do we get from them? I have asked this question three years in succession and want to put it again. We in this House —we may as well be honest about it— agreed to a proposal to stop the civil servants getting a bonus paid to them. We stabilised that at a certain point. That was all in the interest of the great programme to stop inflation. Of course, we have inflation and no one denies it. However, we all agreed to stop civil servants getting a bonus, because if they were paid that extra money and they purchased goods, the impact of that bonus money on our relatively small store of commodities was going to increase the prices. If you look at the figure derived from the civil servants by the State in any one year, according to question and answer in this House, you find it is £1,000,000. That £1,000,000, if paid to the civil servants in the way of bonus, is inflationary, it is going to increase the cost of foodstuffs; but £1,000,000 spent by English, Welsh and Scotch visitors is apparently not inflation. Why? Why is £1,000,000 spent by civil servants apt to cause an increase in prices and the same amount of money spent by people who come in from outside is not inflation? Would anybody tell me what the difference is? I have sought for three years to get an explanation of that simple question and have not got it yet.
It can be said, of course, that by paying £1,000,000 to civil servants, we are, so to speak, getting nothing from them. Nothing of course, except the repayment of our own honour. We pledged ourselves to give those people that money. Not merely that, we told them at one time, through the mouth of the Taoiseach, that it would be their life and their safeguard at a time when prices would rise and their bonus would go up. We docked them £2,000,000 in a number of years when the cost-of-living index figure fell and their salaries went down but the Taoiseach claimed that when it rose their bonus would be safeguarded. Then we stepped in and said we would not give them the bonus. We said: "We know we made a contract; that is right, and as honest people we should pay; but we will not, and our argument is that it would put up prices." We are under no obligation to tourists. We do not owe them anything. We have no contract with them, we never said we would pay them any money, and we never said that we would allow them to exchange their bad money into our good goods.
Now we invite them over and they are going to circulate amongst our hotels and going to eat our relatively short amount of commodities, and when it is all over, we will not have satisfied the debt of honour that we might have satisfied towards the civil servants. What will we have? The old mania is again in the ascendancy. We will have £1,000,000—English pounds? What is going to happen to the £1,000,000—English pounds? It will be packed up to our credit, frozen stiff, the way the £200,000,000 we have over there is frozen, and we will liquidate it when and at what rate nobody knows, least of all the Minister.
I quoted in this House last year the financial, the Parliamentary, the scientific definition of a pound sterling, that it was a promise made by the Bank of England to pay at such time as the British Government decided such amount of money as the British Government decided it was worth. Supposing tourists come here and spend £1,000,000, we are accumulating another million promises by the British Treasury that they will pay us at whatever time suits them so much money as they think it is worth while to pay us. To get that, whatever it is worth, we are going to entice in, this year, to swarm through our seaside resorts, over our golf links, through our racecourses, to stay in our city hotels, all these hungry people from outside and they will eat all this food of ours —they will pay no attention to our scenery—and will do the native out of enjoying it and then we will have frozen credit at the other side. We have far too much of it—two hundred millions of it.
When I spoke last July on this matter, I spoke always on the basis that what was called the lend-lease arrangement between England and America would be wiped out, there would be a complete writing-off of the debts wherever those debts were in surplus over a credit. Even in the end the situation was bad, and, judging by the last five or six years' experience, it is quite clear we were not going to get any return for all our credits on the other side. It is bad enough to lodge your money in a bank when somebody gives you a hint which you do not entirely believe that the bank may not pay but, when the bank says to you: "We are not going to pay you and look at our practice for six years: we have not paid you, and that is a practice we are going to continue", would not a man be a fool to put any more money into such a bank?
That is the situation we face, and remember, in addition to that, time has rolled on and arrangements have been made and in these arrangements, although we were not present at the making of them, we are involved. The Americans have now said they may grant a loan of something like a thousand millions odd to England. And on what conditions? They said, very carefully: "We are not giving you our good dollars to go and distribute to Egyptians and Australians and Irish. That is not what we are giving you money for. It is for your own trade and before you get any penny of this money from us you are to enter into arrangements with these countries that have sterling assets piled up with you, and the arrangements will have to be along each of these three lines: You will wipe out part of these moneys and say they are not going to be paid; in regard to another part—roughly, it was assumed these were going to be in thirds—you will fund it over a long-term period, pay back, say, over a generation, and the remaining third you will make convertible into dollars." That is the new situation, and while that is the new situation and when we know, not because the British like it but because to get money from the people from whom alone they can get money, they have been put under this obligation: "Go to your sterling creditors, wipe out some part of your debt, freeze some other part of it, and let the rest be convertible," we invite in in this year a new lot of tourists to deprive us and our native population of what they may get for their amusement, for their physical benefit and for their education. We deprive them of all that, and we get, say, another £1,000,000 in England on the terms, as we now know, that of that new £1,000,000, £300,000 may be wiped off, £300,000 funded to be paid over 33 years, and £300,000 to be made freely convertible into dollars.
Why should we do that? Why should we increase the prices on our own population here for the sake of giving benefit to these tourists who will pay us in a currency of which we have far too much and about which we are warned that we will only get payment when the British like and at such a rate as the British like to determine? Supposing it was clear to this country, and that our people knew that what we were going to get out of this in the end was, say, 10/- for every pound, would we have the same enthusiasm about inviting in thousands of tourists this year, if we knew that while our prices were being raised on us and on our fellows by these people who were coming in, our pound was going to be convertible eventually into some sort of British currency, frozen for a time and then paid at the rate of 10/- for each 20/- value we gave them? Is that what we want? Yet that is what we are aiming at in so far as this board is trying to get tourists this year or next year.
I say we should call a halt to that. I think this country ought to be freely open to the natives. I think that in so far as there is any scenery or any other benefit of a more material type to be given the native ought to get first preference. I say that the hotel keepers will not suffer if we circulate amongst our community the purchasing power we have so far withheld from them wrongly and dishonestly and in breach of contract on the false plea that we are going to prevent inflation. If we circulate that, our hotel keepers would get as much paid to them as they would get from all the tourists that we get in but they would be getting it from native hands and not from outsiders. Why should not they get it from native hands and why should not whatever they have to give in the way of food or scenery, relaxation, amusement, building up of the person in any way, accrue to the benefit of the native population instead of to the outsider? I think we should focus our eyes definitely on our own people.
I take Deputy McCarthy's line and deal with it in another way, from the financial side. Deputy McCarthy made a plea to-day for attending to the native, and particularly for attending to the native who has small resources and has to be catered for, not in a luxury hotel but in some sort of decent place where he could spend the few days he gets off from his work to try to recuperate in body and mind. I say he is being done out. He is not counted in this scheme. This £1,250,000 has no relation to him whatever but, apart from all that, Deputy McCarthy's native, deprived of his holiday and deprived of the place where he could get his holiday amusement, is going to find, because of the influx of tourists, that the prices he will pay, not in any seaside resort, not in any pleasure resort, but at home, will be raised because of the impact of this false purchasing power on the amount of commodities we have to sell.
It is all part of the crazy economics we have been developing in this country for five or six years back on all this fictitious plea of preventing inflation, inflation being here and inflation going to be increased by whatever new money comes into this country through tourists in the season that is ahead of us. We have taken many lessons from the British. We copy their legislation in all sorts of ways. We have taken their whole currency over here. We have taken their whole financial system as really being ours. They recently announced in the House of Commons that they would take no active steps to encourage any tourists to Britain before next year. There they are. Instead of that, we are going to ask for them to come and we are going to ask that they bring in more of this bad currency of theirs, currency bad for the reason it is not going to be paid for at its face value and not going to be paid for at our demand. They are going to bring all that in. They are going then to put us, the natives of this country, who are not going to enjoy any benefit, in the position that we will suffer from this disadvantage that our purchasing power, whatever it may be, is going to have less effect than ever before because the prices of our scarce commodities are going to be raised.
The Minister said to-day he did not want to encourage tourists from abroad this year.
That is a lesson learnt from last year. I hope to drive that home.
I said that last year too.
The Minister's answer to me last year was the very facile and idiotic one, when I talked about the pound sterling, "the £ was worth 20/-." Even Deputy McCarthy laughs at that and it was not meant as a joke. That was the answer. I talked about preventing these people coming in last year. I talked distinctly about the advertising and the propaganda programme with the idea of bringing people in last year. In any event, the Tourist Board's report for 1944 says: "It is expected that this year and probably for some years to come the demand for accommodation will exceed the capacity of the industry". What have they done to stop this influx? They have done nothing. Are they not catering for it? Are they not advertising and are they not doing their best to get people to come here? What has the Minister done, either by a finance policy or any other policy, to keep these people out and to let us have our country for ourselves at least for this summer? The whole policy of the Minister has been to laud sterling assets, to say that they are of great benefit to us. It was as if we were being given some great gift by these people in spending their money here. We do not want it. That should be stated vehemently and often. I am glad the Minister, to some extent, agreed with me when I stated, and I repeat it now, that tourists should not be invited into this country while our commodities are scarce. I ask the Minister to give people, such as civil servants, some of the money that he has withheld from them on a false plea, to enable them, at the end of seven years, to enjoy some part of the bonus withheld from them during that period. Let him give them one year's emoluments and let them throng to our hotels and seaside resorts and at least have the benefit of eating our own food.
I agree with Deputy Cafferky in his plea for the native Irish, the plain people. So far as I can see, this Bill is nothing more than a Bill for the idle rich, the racegoers and the gamblers in this country and those who are flocking in here. I view this Bill with great alarm. I think it is going too far, that there is too much money involved in it. It took us a long time to build up our own culture and now we are having an influx of foreign ideas. This thing must come to a head sometime. Are we to cater for Irish ideas or are we to become part and parcel of a European tradition which has gone rotten? That must be answered sometime.
I hold that it is time to stop this tourist business and to develop this country for ourselves alone. We have nothing to learn from foreigners. We have maintained our own culture for thousands of years and we are proud of it, while they have lost theirs. We are bowing and scraping to everybody who comes in here. We are doing everything we can for them. We must leave the footpaths to the bigwigs whom we are begging to come in here. It is said we cannot live without them. I hold that the reverse is the case, that we do not want them. They gave us very little help in the past and we got on our own feet despite them.
I ask the Minister to recast this whole Bill and this whole tourist development programme and let it be a programme for the Irish natives, the people living on £2 or £3 a week and those living on the dole, those who are not able to get a holiday at all. If we have money to spend, why not spend it on the people's homes and give them some little comfort? We are to go in for spending millions on seaside and other hotels for the big monopolists. We are calling on all these idle rich and gamblers and financiers from all ends of the world to come in here and have a good time at our expense. When they go back their newspapers will laugh and joke at the ignorant and wild Irish. I think it is time to stop all that. It is time for us to maintain our own culture. It is time that we made a real effort to save the traditions of our people. We must stand for Irish culture and the Irish language. We should keep this country for the Irish people and nobody else.
I am glad that a member of the Government Party, Deputy McCarthy, spoke as he did. Like myself, he lives amongst the people and knows their needs. It is unfair to spend all this money for those people who are to get the benefit of it. We know that the majority of our own people are not getting the benefit of it. Very few of them are, except those who may be living near a seaside resort.
I ask the Minister to review the whole position. All we have done up to this is to create big jobs for people who are quite incompetent to do them. We have given the jobs to men who never served an apprenticeship to the tourist or hotel business. They had the pull behind the scenes and they got the jobs. I know many of them. I would not give some of them the job of leading out blind dogs.
I have listened to Deputy McGilligan, and his speech was typical of his contributions to a number of debates in this House. His whole speech was destructive from beginning to end. He implied by his remarks that the hotels being built in this country by the Tourist Board were solely for people who come here from foreign countries. In pre-war days we were faced with the position that a number of our own people had to go to foreign countries to enjoy a holiday. Those who were in a position to save money to have a decent holiday tried to get out of the country. Their one cry was that there were not enough facilities for them in this country and the hotels were not as they should be. Now when the Tourist Board tries to improve our hotels and to provide facilities we hear a responsible Deputy like Deputy McGilligan making the most destructive speech that any Deputy could make. We heard about the workers in our own country and other remarks like that. I do not see how this Bill will keep our own people away from these hotels or that it was ever intended to do so. We heard about some frozen assets which are being built up in Great Britain. I shall refrain from commenting on that. If we are to develop our country on the lines of other modern countries which have enjoyed freedom for hundreds of years, at least we will have to see that our country has decent hotels and decent and up-to-date seaside resorts. It is most essential that we should do that. Our own people will enjoy them and also will have the benefit of the money that is spent.
There are some seaside resorts in this county which are all right during fine weather when one can undress and bathe in the open but in wet weather there is not even a shelter. The Tourist Development Board has now come along and they are making a view of a number of seaside resorts with a view to seeing what they can do to help workers, and men of small means, who wish to enjoy a holiday. My only regret is that they are not doing more in County Dublin. The seaside resorts in County Dublin are adjacent to the city and I should like to see them developed to a greater extent, even for our own people, so that when they get an opportunity of going to the seaside they will be afforded facilities for amusement and enjoyment as well as enjoying the sea, fresh air and sunshine. We hope by developing these resorts along the lines which the Minister has indicated, that the resorts in this country will be provided with facilities equally as modern as those in countries which have enjoyed freedom for a long time.
I should like the Minister to pay special attention to some of the better-known seaside resorts in North County Dublin such as Skerries, Malahide and Donabate. There are great possibilities of development in these areas. I know that the Tourist Board, as well as the county commissioner, have been making inquiries and investigations but I should like to impress upon the Minister again to ascertain what can be done in these areas because, as I say, they are in close proximity to the city and we should like to cater as efficiently as we can for people who come from the city as well as those who come from inland centres. We have been told from time to time, as we have been told by Deputy Giles to-night, that we are not trying to save our Irish culture, our Irish traditions and various other Irish attributes. We have been told by members of the very same Party periodically that the policy of the Fianna Fáil Government showed that they were isolationists. Now the boot is on the other foot and when it suits them to change the argument, they accuse us of being internationalists. It is very hard to blow hot and cold in that way. I think that, generally speaking, the Tourist Development Board has done a good deal for the country and that they will do a good deal more. If they did nothing more than to improve the hotels in the country, they performed a good service for natives of the country, for the man who has only a few pounds saved for holidays, in seeing that he will not have to pay an exorbitant rate for the time he spends at an hotel. It is a good thing to know, when you go into a town that you can get the advice of the Irish Tourist Board as to the hotel to which you should go or the hotel which is likely to cater for you best. It is about time that a proper registration of Irish hotels was brought about.
I have heard some references made here to the chairman of the Tourist Board. I am very sorry that any Deputy should be so ungentlemanly as to attack a man in his absence. The chairman of the Tourist Board, in my opinion, is an honour to the country and is worthy of the job he holds. I do not know many of the officials of this board but the few of them I do know are worthy citizens of the country and worthy of holding the positions of trust in which they have been placed. In conclusion, I have only to compliment the Minister on the advance he is making. I hope he will continue on the lines suggested until we have this country as up-to-date as any country in the world and that we shall be able to cater fully, not only for our own people but that we shall still possess that old Irish courtesy and will be able to welcome to the country tourists from abroad and be able to provide them at least with decent hotels when they come into the country.
Deputy Mulcahy stated in the course of his argument in favour of the amendment that the Act was being operated now contrary to the plan intended and announced when the Act was under discussion as a Bill in 1939. That is correct. The Act was introduced in 1939 in circumstances very different from those which prevailed during the past six years. At that time, looking ahead and assuming the continuance of more or less normal conditions, it was contemplated that by far the greater part of the money made available to the Irish Tourist Board would be utilised for the improvement of hotel accommodation through the giving of financial advances to hotel proprietors and through the operation of the hotel registration system. Only a small part of the total sum provided in 1939 was intended to be used for the development of facilities at holiday resorts but a change in plan was occasioned by the circumstances that developed. I explained to the House that when the Act began to function the war began also and the Government decided that the activities of the Irish Tourist Board should be confined to the planning of future development, which it was intended should be undertaken only when the war was over. It was clearly not possible, therefore, for the board to proceed on the lines originally contemplated. The improvement of hotel accommodation was not practicable because of supply difficulties, and hotel proprietors, in those times, were fearful of their own trade and were unwilling to enter into financial commitments on extensions of accommodation or the improvement of accommodation.
The board, because it was confined to this planning activity, naturally concentrated upon the work of reviewing the facilities available at holiday resorts and the preparation of plans for the improvement of these resorts. At a later stage, when it appeared to the Government that the war was coming to an end, it was considered desirable that the board should be more active and the board was asked by the Government to bring forward as rapidly as possible the greatest number of these holiday resort development plans, not because we thought that was the most suitable way to develop the holiday business, but because the Government was anxious to have prepared by the Tourist Board, as it was anxious to have prepared by the Electricity Supply Board and other State and semi-State organisations, the maximum number of schemes with a high employment content. None of these development schemes is being undertaken merely because of the employment given by them but the Tourist Board, like other similar organisations, was asked to put such schemes in the forefront of its programme so that after the war when the supply of materials began to revive and when work could be organised on a larger scale, the actual plans for the work would be there and no delay would be occasioned on that account. That is why the programme of the Irish Tourist Board at present appears to concentrate very largely on resort development projects and why a very high proportion of the total amount of money provided for the board will be used for such projects.
A large part of the discussion here to-day related to what is a very temporary part of the board's activities, namely the acquisition of certain hotel properties with a view to their disposal later. The main purpose for which this money will be expended is the development of resorts, the construction of public lavatories, the provision of public parks, bandstands and of recreational facilities which do not exist in many of these places at the moment. If Deputy Giles wants a discussion of this matter against its historical background, let me tell him what the historical background is. A generation ago holidays were the prerogative of the very wealthy classes. The great majority of the people in this or any other country never had any holidays at all. In this country, for reasons to which it is not necessary to refer, the wealthy classes were, in the main, people of an alien extraction who preferred to spend their holidays outside the country.
On that account the natural facilities available here for pleasant and enjoyable holidays were never fully developed. This country is extraordinarily backward in that regard. We have seaside resorts with unrivalled beaches; we have excellent fishing and shooting facilities and inland resorts of exceptional beauty, but in no case have they been developed as similar resorts elsewhere would have been developed, not primarily to attract tourists but to provide the people of the country with ample opportunity of enjoying these amenities.
If we are to make good these arrears in national equipment, clearly the task of doing so must be organised in a systematic manner. We could possibly leave that work to local authorities and hope that gradually and out of the local rates they would make good these deficiencies, but in the present circumstances it would be too much to hope that local authorities could devote money to that purpose and, therefore, the Government thought it desirable to set up a central organisation and give that organisation certain funds for the purpose. These funds are not being expended merely by way of grant or expenditure designed to provide facilities for the public. It is hoped that the moneys expended by the Tourist Board will bring a profit to the board.
Let me explain how the board works. In a particular holiday resort, such as Tramore, there was a large area of ground adjacent to the town, an area that was subject to flooding. It was located behind the promenade and was ideally situated for development. It was undeveloped and was really little better than a swamp. The board has spent a large amount of money on the reclamation of that land. It employed the Construction Corps and provided a very useful scheme for the employment of that corps. It has reclaimed that land and is now going to develop it in the form of a park, with recreational and amusement facilities. It hopes to make that property available for people who may want to provide hotels, cinemas, dance-halls or restaurants. It will lease or sell portions of that property to people who will construct these buildings and in that way it will recover, in the sale price of the land so disposed of or by way of the rents that people will pay them, the total cost of the land, plus a profit.
Deputies have asked on what basis development schemes have been given priority, why one resort was selected instead of another. Not every resort lends itself to the type of development that the board has in mind. The board must see some prospect of getting back its money. Going to a seaside resort in order to build a promenade or a bandstand or make a public park or other useful amenity is not sufficient for the board unless it can acquire possession of adjoining property which its work will enhance in value and enable it to sell at a profit, thus recovering the whole expenditure. The board selected for the preparation of development schemes the resorts obviously suited to operations of that kind as well as resorts that are well known and, therefore, likely to attract private enterprise in their development. There are a number of places in this country, in County Cork, as Deputy McCarthy pointed out, and in other counties, where there are exceptional facilities at the seaside or inland, but where the development work may be a second stage development of the board's activities because at present it can most usefully engage all its funds and energies on the particular resorts I have named.
I want to bring that particular aspect of the board's work into the picture, because it has tended to become obscured by the reference to hotels. The board has acquired certain properties which it will hold for a few months. Before this year is out it will have disposed of those properties to a new company which is to be established on an interim basis. It will have no capital except what is required for the particular purpose of developing these properties. It is intended, when the properties are developed, and when it is practicable to go to the public, that the company will be sold to the public on a basis which the board considers reasonable in all the circumstances. The board was asked to acquire these properties because, during the war, they became available. They might have been, if not acquired by the board, acquired by other interests, or they might not have been acquired at all; they might have gone derelict. In each case they were ideally suited for a particular type of hotel development.
It is not intended that the board will engage in hotel business. The board will develop these properties as hotels and get rid of them to the company which, at some stage, will be a public company with shareholders, managed by a board of directors elected by these shareholders. These properties—there are only four or five—are located in areas where the only hotel business that can be undertaken is a holiday business. They will not be commercial hotels. A commercial traveller will not go to Newtown Termonfeckin or Ballinahinch in the course of his ordinary commercial travellings. Clearly the hotels in these places will be holiday hotels attracting people interested in fishing and shooting in the one case, and, in the other case, in seaside facilities and, therefore, the type of business these hotels will do will be determined by their location.
The particular properties the board has acquired at the moment and is developing are not in competition with any private interests of a similar character in the same area. The only actual hotel which the board has acquired—listening to Deputy McGilligan one would think that board had gone out to buy hotels all over the country, whereas it has bought only one hotel—is the one in Lisdoonvarna. There was a special reason for the acquisition of that hotel, why it should be acquired and developed on a considerable scale. The board is financially interested, apart from its official functions, in the development of the Lisdoonvarna Spa. There are considerable potentialities in developing the tourist traffic in Lisdoonvarna and the board considered that the expenditure of money in the construction of baths and the provision of other facilities would be of little purpose unless there was a good hotel, with adequate accommodation, in the immediate vicinity. It acquired this hotel voluntarily and is expending on its development and enlargement a very much larger sum than the actual price paid for the original hotel.
I want to emphasise that the business of acquiring and developing hotels is a very small part of the board's activities, and a very temporary part. In so far as hotel accommodation is concerned, the board's function is to stimulate private enterprise, to get private enterprise to provide hotels and supervise the accommodation provided, so that the name hotel will not be associated with any premises unless it is one that is worthy of being so described.
That is the purpose of the register. The board controls the word "hotel", and only premises registered as hotels with it are entitled to describe themselves as hotels. The board originally established a comparatively low standard of the accommodation required in order to acquire the use of that name. It will raise that standard. It will insist on proper kitchens, proper lavatory accommodation, proper bedroom accommodation, and a standard of cleanliness and comfort that might reasonably be expected in places describing themselves as hotels. It is prepared not merely to encourage hotel proprietors to develop to a higher standard, but is prepared to assist them with technical advice. It has a staff of engineers and architects who are at the service of hotel proprietors to advise them on the lay-out, design and equipment to be provided. It is prepared also to help them financially.
I will have to deal more fully with the question of financial help to hotel proprietors. This whole business of developing holiday facilities will not succeed unless private interests can be stimulated to provide, not merely hotel and restaurant accommodation, but all the other amusement facilities that one would expect to find at holiday resorts. The board can assist private enterprise. It can provide general amenities and facilities in resorts which will attract people to them. All that will fail unless private initiative is there and is developed on right lines. I stated that I wanted to deal more fully with the financial help to be given hotel proprietors. The original scheme contemplated that the board would be in a position to make advances of money to hotel proprietors for the purpose of improvement. I think it is true, as some Deputies stated, that very few hotel proprietors would want financial help of that kind at present. They could borrow money probably from the banks as cheaply as the board might lend to them. The board can only get the money it advances from the Exchequer and the Exchequer will have to be recouped at least the rate of interest and the board will need to add something to cover administrative costs. It is probable, in fact, that the type of assistance the board could best give hotel proprietors is the guaranteeing of loans made to them by banks or by way of debentures issued in the ordinary way, rather than by direct cash advances. I am having examined the adequacy of the board's powers in that regard. I think most Deputies who know of the facilities for procuring money for development purposes at a low rate will agree that, in present circumstances, the hotel industry could best be assisted by guaranteeing advances, which would reduce the rate of interest, rather than making direct cash advances.
Reference was made to the establishment of a hotel in Limerick. The board is naturally anxious to have a large well-managed hotel in Limerick, but it is endeavouring to get that hotel established by local enterprise. It is prepared to assist financially by an investment in preference shares in a company formed for the purpose, but it is hoped that the hotel will be financed in the main by Limerick capital and by private enterprise. If private enterprise in Limerick does not do so, if the board cannot stimulate it to provide the hotel accommodation that is required, the board must take more direct action. It seems from discussions that have proceeded in Limerick that local business enterprises will do the job adequately, assisted by the board, not merely in a financial way, but, as I indicated, also by technical advice of one kind or another. Similarly, in other areas, the board is endeavouring to stimulate local enterprise to get done what the board thinks should be done.
I was asked if it was intended to build a hotel at Rineanna. I do not think the board intends to build a hotel at Rineanna. There is some difference in views as to whether a hotel in Rineanna is what is desired. The operating companies appear to think that transatlantic passengers staying overnight, or a couple of days, at the Shannon airport would prefer to reside in a hotel at Limerick or Ennis than a hotel at the airport. There are certain attractions in a city or a town where there are cinemas and other amusements rather than in a comparatively isolated country district. It will be necessary, however, for the airport authorities to consider the provision at the airport of overnight accommodation of a limited kind. That problem of accommodation at the airport is having the attention not merely of the Government and of the Department, but of the operating companies at the present time. There appears to be no doubt that, if the development of these transatlantic air services to the Shannon are associated with the development of the tourist business in that locality, that there will need to be a considerable development of hotel accommodation in the vicinity of Limerick, Ennis, Kilkee and other neighbouring towns.
It has been an objection to the Irish Tourist Board that it does not include a hotel proprietor or a hotel manager. The Vocational Organisation Committee regarded that as a criticism, that it had not a hotel proprietor or a hotel manager on it. Deliberately it was decided that such persons would not go on to the board. The board was set up to control hotels, to establish a standard of accommodation, to see that hotels conformed to that standard, and to deny the right of the use of the word "hotel" to any hotel that did not conform to a standard considered reasonable. Generally, it was to exercise supervision over the whole hotel industry.
It was considered that the one class of person who ought not to be on the board was a person who himself had a financial interest in any form in any hotel or hotel company. The board has got expert advice on hotel equipment and, on the basis of that advice, takes decisions concerning individual hotels. But the board is free of the charge, because of its composition, that it can be influenced in its judgement in relation to individual enterprise by persons financially interested in the hotel business. My advice to anyone responsible for nominating persons on it is not to put on the board anyone financially interested in the hotel business.
The members of the board were picked because of their general suitability and for the particular qualifications which the individuals possessed. I am quite certain that if any member of the Dáil had to pick people willing to act in that capacity he could pick as good a board which would contain as good members as the existing board. That does not condemn the existing board. The chairman, Mr. J.P. O'Brien, was director of the Irish Tourist Association and has probably more experience than any other person of the tourist business. At the time Mr. Thomas Condon was appointed he was chairman of the Irish Tourist Association. Mr. Joseph Gannon is an engineer as well as a business director, and because of these qualifications is particularly suitable to be on the board. Lord Monteagle was put on the board because he has had considerable experience in this and in other countries of matters with which the board is dealing. An Fear Mór has the reputation of running a very successful summer Irish college at Ring, County Waterford, for a number of years, and has had much experience of organisation of that type. These are the five people of whom Deputy McGilligan stated that anything he knew about them was not to their credit. I am astonished at Deputy McGilligan making such a statement. I know of nothing to their discredit. I do not think anyone here knowing them could say anything of them in their personal capacities or as to their suitability for the board which would in any way reflect upon them.
Deputy Mulcahy and other Deputies complained that the board has been too reluctant to give information concerning its activities. I think there is some basis for that criticism. Perhaps the board was unduly cautious in their policy. Certainly, I have not followed the same policy to-day. I endeavoured to give the Dáil all the information that I could possibly give concerning the various activities of the board. The board had reasons for its policy. I explained already its method of operation. It goes to a particular resort with the idea of developing an area of that resort. Having first acquired all the land in the vicinity selected and developed parks, promenades, bandstands, and amusement facilities, the property acquired would increase in value and the board would be able by sale in relation to the increased value to recover its expenditure.
Now, clearly, they would not succeed in acquiring easily and cheaply the land adjacent to the land that was going to be developed if they announced in advance what they were going to do. Their reason for not publicising in detail their schemes was to prevent speculation in that land—driving the price up against them, and thus depriving them of the benefit of their investment.
They have compulsory powers, it is true, and these compulsory powers may have to be used in certain cases, and may have to be used more extensively because of the information given to-day. The powers given in the principal Act are of a rather cumbersome character and the board have been reluctant to resort to these powers. Instead of proceeding to announce the details of their scheme, they acquire property at its normal market value, on a willing seller and a willing buyer basis. That is the proper and desirable method of proceeding. It was because they wished to proceed in that way that the board deliberately endeavoured to withhold details of development schemes until they had acquired the property that they wanted to acquire. If because of the publication of details here to-day, or of any further publication, the value of such property is unduly enhanced and schemes become impracticable on that account, the board will either have to drop the schemes or resort to compulsory acquisition when the value of the property will be assessed by arbitration.
One other reason why the board has chosen certain resorts for development instead of others, and why progress in the case of some of these resorts has not been as rapid as the board would like, must be referred to. Everything depends on the co-operation of the local authority. Deputy McGilligan referred to the announcement by the Commissioner for County Dublin of his intention to undertake sewerage and water supply schemes in the Portmarnock area where property has been acquired by the board. Clearly, the development of this area on the lines contemplated by the board would be impracticable unless the local authority co-operated by providing these public facilities—sewerage, water supply, and roads. This was a private estate and the house was occupied by a single family. The family had the estate for their own personal use. The property was acquired by the board, and if it is to be developed, as the board contemplate, the full co-operation of the local authority is necessary. The board intend to develop the property so as to enable them to dispose of portions of it to people who are prepared to build hotels, to put up shops, cinemas, cafés, restaurants and so forth. That will not be practicable unless the public services required are provided by the local authority.
In a number of the resorts that I have mentioned, the completion of the board's plans is being held up because the local authority, for one reason or another, is unable or unwilling to provide these services at the present time. Clearly, the successful operation of all the board's local resort development schemes depends fully upon the adequate co-operation of the local Authorities in the areas concerned. I might also say it depends on the co-operation of the local business community. This did not arise in the case of Portmarnock, but it did at Tramore and other places, where the board promoted the establishment of a local company. Persons interested in the development of the town and resident locally arrange for the collection of capital to be invested in the type of development to which I have referred, utilising the board's property for that purpose. Until the board can see the prospect of such local effort being forthcoming on an adequate scale, it will be hesitant about undertaking the large expenditure involved in some cases.
Deputy Coogan referred to the desirability of improving the standard of hotel service by the adequate training of hotel staffs. That is one of the special functions given to the board. They are already organising classes for hotel chefs and other specialised hotel services. I think that a great deal more can be done in that direction, and I should hope to see the day when a registered hotel would be a place that has a manager or a manageress who has acquired certain certificates of proficiency and experience in the business, and that the persons employed as hotel cooks would be persons who had undergone specialised training in that work. I think there is a great deal to be done both by direct subsidisation of technical classes by the board and by the promotion of competitions, such as was suggested here. By one means and another, I think we should endeavour to make it known to those engaged in this business that good service will attract trade, and to ensure that the all-round standard service will be sufficiently high to secure the reputation of the whole holiday business here. It is quite obvious that, in one particular holiday resort, or in any particular area—it is probably true of the country as a whole—one badly run hotel, one place where the lavatories are not kept clean, where the beds are dirty or where the meals are not properly cooked or properly served, will cause such damage to the reputation of the whole area as to undermine and destroy the business of everybody else in the same area. That is why it is reasonable enough to establish such an authority as the board with power to ensure that one badly run business will not be allowed to continue, thereby destroying the opportunity of advancing and improving all other similar businesses in the same locality.
Deputy Coogan also inquired as to the board's method of recruiting staff. The board's staff is not very large in number and, to some extent, consists of persons with specialised training. It has engineers and architects as part of its specialised staff. Its staff was recruited by means of advertisements in the public Press inviting applicants who were interviewed by a committee of the board. They were placed in order of merit, as the committee judged it to be. Those placed first on the list were appointed as required. Before leaving this subject, there is just one other point I want to dispose of, and that is the idea that the board is interested only in wealthy foreign visitors. One of the purposes for which the board was set up was to develop holiday facilities for workers. It is only in the last ten years or so that the idea of holidays for workers developed at all, and if workers are to be given holidays by law or by agreement with employers, it is obviously desirable that they be given also facilities to enable them to get good holidays at suitable holiday resorts and within their means. The business of holiday hostels for workers in other countries was developed, sometimes by private enterprise and often as a Government project. The construction of holiday camps in Great Britain and elsewhere may have had in mind the possibility of war-time mobilisation at a later stage, but, in all cases, so far as it has been possible to ascertain, these camps were very successful, and were operated on a profitable basis despite the fact that good meals and suitable accommodation were provided for workers at a very low cost. One of the functions of the board is to promote the establishment, or to establish itself, of such holiday hostels at suitable centres, with the provision of suitable holiday accommodation for workers and their families. Some of the properties which have already been acquired and to which I have referred will be developed as hostels, and the board is giving very special attention to that aspect of the work.
I did not refer earlier to one particular activity upon which the board has been engaged during the war years. The Government asked it to carry out a systematic review of the athletic facilities available in every parish— parishes that had parish halls or playing fields, football fields, athletic grounds or swimming facilities. The board carried out a very systematic survey of all the facilities of that kind in every parish, and that information is available to the Government.
It may happen that it will not be the Irish Tourist Board which will be responsible for doing anything in relation to the provision of such facilities. However, the board was asked by the Government to carry out that survey and, on the basis of that survey, the Government may be able to take action, either directly or through local authorities, to make such facilities available to our people, particularly in the rural areas and smaller country towns. Although the board will not neglect the possibility of the business of providing suitable holiday accommodation for people who can afford to pay for good holiday accommodation, it will have a very special function of ensuring that adequate holiday facilities will be available for everybody within their means.
Let me deal with the question of foreign tourists, about which Deputy McGilligan spoke at great length, although it is not of great importance at the moment. I stated, in introducing the Bill, that the board is taking no steps, by means of publicity or otherwise, to attract such tourists in this year. The reason is not that given by Deputy McGilligan. The main reason is that we are not ready to receive them. The number of hotel bedrooms in this country is very small, compared with our population—much smaller in relation to our population than the number of hotel bedrooms in other countries. We have not got hotel accommodation for such tourists, but large numbers are coming. We do not propose to stop them, but we are not going to take any measures to attract them or facilitate them in coming. Many of them are going to come in any case. A large number will be Irish people or people of Irish descent, coming home here to establish contacts with relatives and friends, and certainly they would regard it as a real hardship if the Government took any steps to prevent their coming.
As I have said, we are taking no steps to encourage them to come, because we are not ready for them. If we had had five or six years of the work of the Tourist Board in developing resorts and improving hotel accommodation, then we would be glad to see them, but at the present time a large influx of visitors in such numbers could not be catered for adequately. It might cause a great deal of dissatisfaction which would do us more harm than good in the future trade. In the future, when the present scarcities have ceased and sterling is freely convertible into other currencies, then that business will be good business and it will be an export business, and export business is what we require if we are to build up the standard of life of our own people.
Deputy Cafferky referred to hotel charges and I think Deputy McCarthy also mentioned the matter. The board does not control hotel charges in the sense of fixing reasonable charges for the accommodation provided. What the board does is this: Each registered hotel each year, as a condition of registration, is required to state what its charges are for various classes of accommodation, and those charges stated by the hotel to be its charges are published by the board in its handbook. The hotel goes off the register and is put out of business if the actual charges are more than those stated, the aim of the board being to ensure that there will not be any tendency on the part of a hotel proprietor to shove up charges on a likely prospect or a foreign visitor, or take advantage of any special rush of business to charge more. They can fix any charge they like, but they must stick to it. It is on the basis of that charge that they will be publicised by the Tourist Board, so that a person desirous of going to Killarney or any other resort can look up the Tourist Board handbook and select the hotel with charges within his means. One thing the board will endeavour to ensure for him is that the scale of charges quoted in the handbook will be adhered to by the hotel when the visitor arrives seeking accommodation.
I agree that the development of holiday business here requires an improvement in our travel facilities, though I would not agree that our travel facilities are altogether as bad as Deputy Cafferky represented them. I think Deputy McCarthy was nearer the truth. It is certainly part of the whole general plan of development that, as circumstances make it possible, travel facilities will be improved in frequency and in price. As the House is aware, the chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann has already announced substantial reductions in transport charges, to operate as from 1st July next. Even this year, there will be some expansion of omnibus services, because of the acquisition by the company of new omnibuses; and perhaps it is not beyond the bounds of probability that some expansion in rail services may also become practicable.
Deputy Cogan rightly stated that the House had difficulty in deciding whether the board had been proceeding on right lines, because of the short experience we have had of its operation. Some Deputies misunderstood the position. Certainly, Deputy Coogan did, judging by his observations. The board has not been working since 1939, either on registration of hotels, the improvement of accommodation or on development schemes. For a period of five years after its establishment, the board was withdrawn, as it were, from active work and confined to planning work. The part of the Tourist Act of 1939 concerning registration of hotels was brought into operation only in 1944, and was operated only in last year, and during that year they carried out inspection of hotel accommodation.
They spent £41,000 outside Section 16 at all.
That would be largely on the preparation of the development plans for resorts. That preparation involved a great deal of survey work and engineering and similar activity.
Surely that was paid for under Section 16?
No, Section 15. The board's staff would not be paid for by Government advances. The total expenditure of £38,000 which the board is incurring this year—or, rather, the sum of £20,000, as the other £18,000 is for general publicity work—includes salaries of its technical staff, engineers, architects and surveyors, who have been there preparing these 18 detailed schemes now ready and upon which the board hopes to begin work in the present year, as well as other schemes which may be approved later.
I agree with Deputy Cogan that it is, perhaps, unfair to ask the Dáil to pass judgement on the operation of the Irish Tourist Board, having regard to the limited knowledge we have of the lines on which they have proceeded. I myself would have some hesitation in saying whether they are on sound lines or not, as it is really only in the last 12 months that they have been working on anything more than making plans, and in no case has any single project been brought to the point where judgment on it is possible.
The development of these resorts is only in the initial stages and one man's view as to the success of a particular scheme for any resort is as good as another man's; so one would like to see a complete scheme in operation before giving an opinion. Similarly, the improvement of accommodation at hotels is really only in its initial stage. The board could not set too high a standard during the emergency. It would not have been reasonable to expect that hotel proprietors would go ahead and spend large amounts of money on furniture and equipment which only began to be procurable during the past year. The reason why the Bill is being introduced now, however, is because the schemes already approved, the commitments already entered into, involve eventually a total expenditure larger than that for which the Dáil provided in 1939 and therefore it was considered necessary that the Dáil should be asked to amend the 1939 Act by raising that limit so that these schemes could, in fact, be embarked upon without committing the Dáil for a matter in regard to which it had not been consulted; and so that other schemes supplemental to these could be undertaken, now that it is possible to do so. I should hope, however, that at some stage it will be possible to me to report that the board can embark upon still further activities, in which case further legislation will be required at a time when the Dáil will have more information concerning the work of the board and will be in a better position to pass reasonable judgment upon its work.
The Minister rather minimises one matter which is, I think, of very great importance because it involves the greatest amount of money that has been spent up to the present time, that is, the question of these properties that are going to be handed over to a new company. He indicates that within a few months a new company will be formed that will take over these properties and that in the development that will come along in time the new company will either turn itself into a public company or will sell the properties to another public company. That is a very beautiful but very nebulous outline of what is going to happen and I suggest to the Minister that we would want at this particular stage definite information as to the number and the type of properties that are going to be carried over to this new company, the total amount of capital that will be involved in the properties handed over, and the nature of the company that is going to be set up to do this. The Minister may not be in a position to elaborate that question to-night but I think it is a matter that requires much more detailed elaboration immediately.
I could mention the properties in detail but I could not give a figure as to the total capital involved because that cannot be readily determined. The board has acquired these properties. I have already told the House what the board paid for these properties and it now has to develop them, but the actual cost of development can only be very provisionally estimated in each case. The intention is that these properties will be developed as hotels and kept going as hotels. It is hoped to show that they will be profitable as hotels and at that stage the company will issue its shares to the public when it is able to produce a balance sheet and prospectus which will attract subscriptions to the shares, and transform itself into a publicly owned company in that way. It is considered better business from the point of view of the board to wait until it has hotels as going concerns to show the public rather than a number of country mansions yet to be developed as such.
The Minister not only mentioned the amount of money spent on their acquisition but, in the case of a certain number of them, he indicated roughly the amount that would be required for their ultimate general development. He also indicated that it involved hotels, guest houses, swimming pools, tennis courts, amenities of one kind and another.
No, no.
At any rate, I think we should be clear as to the kind of property, the number of properties and the approximate amount involved that is going to form the nominal capital of this new company, and how the company is to be set up.
Of course, the interim company will have a nominal capital of £100 or £1,000. It will have then a liability to the Tourist Board representing the value of the property transferred from the board. At some stage it will have to be floated on the basis of getting cash equivalent not merely to the amount of loans for which it will be liable to the board but also the amount of working capital it will require to carry on its enterprise.
When I say its capital, I mean the amount of money for which it will be indebted to the board. I think the Minister should have some kind of idea at the present time. At any rate, he ought to give an idea of the kind of properties, the number of properties and the general indebtedness of such new companies to the board and how the company will be formed.