I move that the Bill be now read a second time. In any review of the progress of industrial development in this country, special reference must be made to the exceptional circumstances prevailing in the Western areas, and the occasion of the Second Reading of this Bill is perhaps an appropriate one on which to recall the more obvious of these circumstances.
As has been indicated on more than one occasion previously, this country has for historical reasons suffered from underdevelopment of industries. Such industries as existed, or were developed, tended to become concentrated in the eastern and southern areas of the country, which were already established as the centres of financial and commercial activity and represented the principal market for industrial products. Even under the impetus of the industrial drive begun in 1933, this tendency has continued, for the purely economic reasons mentioned, to the almost total neglect of industrial development on the Western seaboard.
Chronic underdevelopment of industries produced a situation in which the level of industrial employment in this country was substantially lower than elsewhere, and as non-industrial employment was insufficient to absorb the available labour force, a tradition of emigration grew up as the only solution to the resultant economic problem.
In the Western areas, the proportion of the population engaged in industrial employment is less than half the proportion for the country as a whole, and, as emigration continues to be heaviest from those areas, it is a reasonable assumption that the most effective way of checking emigration would be to provide a wider variety of employment, and particularly industrial employmentin those areas. Positive steps to this end have already been taken by the Government. The Undeveloped Areas Act, 1952, provided for the grant of substantial financial assistance to encourage the establishment of industries in the undeveloped areas.
The competitive disadvantage arising from remoteness from the main centres of consumption, and the lack of indigenous raw material have combined to make industrial development in the Western areas a matter of peculiar difficulty. Industrial activity based on agricultural products appears to afford the greatest prospect of successful development and it is on this assumption that the scheme covered by the present Bill has been put forward. The natural wealth of the Western areas consists almost entirely of extensive peat bogs and considerable progress has been made in the development of these bogs for the production of peat as fuel. There are, however, many bogs which will not be required for the production of fuel for many years to come. If left unworked, these bogs will merely continue to grow peat— producing vegetation which will add only slightly to the potential fuel supply.
The value of these bogs and their contribution to the economic development of the Western areas in particular, and of the country generally, would be immeasurably enhanced if it could be shown that by drainage and cultivation they could be utilised for the production of agricultural crops suitable for subsequent drying or other industrial processing.
Grass crops have already been grown experimentally on drained bog land. The primary purpose of the present measure is to enable further, full scale, experimental work to be undertaken to demonstrate the possibilities for the economic utilisation of drained bog land on a commercial basis. For this purpose it is proposed to set up a limited company, Mín-Fhéir Teoranta, to acquire, drain and cultivate bog land in the Bangor-Erris area of County Mayo, and to process grass and other plants for sale. Primarily, the company will manufacture grassmeal, but they may also undertake the productionand processing for sale of other plants, such as medicinal herbs, which are in short supply throughout the world, and some of which can possibly be more successfully grown on drained bog land than elsewhere. If and when required Mín-Fhéir Teoranta will have the benefit of the technical advice and assistance of Bord na Móna as well as of Comhlucht Siúicre Éireann Teoranta, who have already undertaken experiments in the cultivation of drained bog land in other areas.
The scheme is in the nature of an experiment and it is not possible, therefore, nor is it desirable, to attempt to anticipate the method of working which may be adopted by the new company. It is obvious, however, that two or three years may elapse before grass is available in sufficient quantities to justify the economic operation of a full-scale drying plant, and other methods of disposing of the crop may have to be adopted during this initial period.
It would be idle also to suggest that even the most successful outcome of the experiment would automatically solve the problem of industrial employment in remote western areas. As has already been indicated, the purpose of the experiment is to demonstrate the commercial possibilities for the successful cultivation of drained bog land, and it is the intention that expenditure by Mín-Fhéir Teoranta during the experimental period should be limited to the amount necessary for this purpose.
Several considerations influenced the choice of the Bangor-Erris areas for this experiment. Firstly, Bord na Móna are in process of acquiring a substantial area of bog there (about 20,000 acres) out of which the much smaller area of 2,000 acres required for the grass meal experiment could readily be made available without in any way interfering with the plans for turf production. Secondly, the larger area of choice would permit the selection of a location suitable for the use of the mechanical equipment proposed to be used. Finally, as the ultimate objective in the bog development at Bangor-Erris was the erection by the E.S.B. of a peat-fired electricity generating station, the availability of anyelectric power required for the industrial processes would be ensured.
Grass meal is used here mainly as a constituent in the manufacture of compound feeding stuffs for which purpose there is a demand both at home and for export. Grass meal may also be used as a source of chlorophyll, a substance now used extensively in pharmaceutical preparations, and it may be possible to develop a new export market for this purpose. (The plant for the extraction of chlorophyll would involve a capital expenditure of the order of £500,000 which could not be justified at the present stage of development.) It is estimated that approximately 4,000 tons of grass meal will be produced annually.