asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will state the amount of the saving to the Exchequer which will result from the decision to wind up Min Fhéir Teoranta.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Min Fhéir Teoranta
asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if the report of the investigation into the plans and prospects of Min Fhéir Teoranta will be published, and, if not, if he will state the considerations which led the Government to come to the decision to wind up the company.
asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce (a) when the investigations referred to in the Government's statement concerning the winding up of Min Fhéir Teoranta were begun; (b) by whom they were undertaken; (c) whether the terms of the investigators' report were conveyed to the board of the company; (d) whether the board was given an opportunity of expressing its views on the report; (e) whether the company's activities were suspended during the investigation; (f) the amount of money invested in the project to date; and (g) the number of workers employed.
asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce why it was considered necessary to wind up Min Fhéir Teoranta in order to enable the Department of Agriculture and the Forestry Division of the Department of Lands to carry out the experiments mentioned in the Government's recent statement; further, why those experiments could not be undertaken in another centre in North Mayo while allowing the Min Fhéir Teoranta project to continue at the same time.
I propose, with the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, to take Questions Nos. 3, 4, 5, and 6 together.
The plans and prospects of Min Fhéir Teoranta were examined by an inter-departmental committee which commenced its investigations in September, 1954. The committee comprised officers of the Departments of Finance, Industry and Commerce and Agriculture. During the course of its investigations the committee met the directors of the company who were given a full opportunity of expressing their views. After careful consideration of the report of the inter-departmental committee the Government reached the conclusion that the prospects of economic working of the scheme for the production of grass meal at Glenamoy were not such as would warrant continuing with the scheme; and that measures other than those contemplated when Min Fhéir Teoranta was established would prove of more lasting economic and social benefit to Bangor Erris, and would contribute towards a solution of the general economic problems of the western region. As already announced, the Government decided that the Department of Agriculture should carry out comprehensive experiments to ascertain how blanket (shallow) bog can best be reclaimed for agricultural use and applied to the creation of cultivable holdings in the West and that the Forestry Division should carry out a full scale experiment in the afforestation of tracts of blanket bog. These experiments will be long term and it is hoped that the results will provide employment and contribute to the economic well-being of the area on a basis which could not be secured from completion of the grass meal project. The decision that the experiments on bog reclamation and afforestation should be carried out on the land occupied by Min Fhéir Teoranta at Glenamoy, rather than in any other area, will enable alternative employment to be provided for the company's workers.
The answers to other points in the Deputy's questions are as follows: (i) it is not intended that the report of the inter-departmental committee should be published; (ii) the terms of the report were not conveyed to the board of the company; (iii) the company's activities were not suspended during the investigation; (iv) the amounts provided from State funds for the company to date total £35,557; (v) it is expected that the afforestation and bog reclamation work which will be undertaken will involve expenditure from the Exchequer which will be of a productive character and which in time will exceed substantially any immediate saving resulting from the winding-up of the company; (vi) the number of persons employed by the company is 29.
Is the Minister not aware that there are plenty of bog lands in the Glenamoy area where those experiments could be carried out —plenty of bog lands adjacent to the present area in which the grass meal company were working?
The Deputy will appreciate that those experiments were substituted for the present activities of Min Fhéir, Teoranta. If the experiments which are now being substituted for their activities were carried out otherwise than in Glenamoy the workers at Glenamoy would be disemployed. This scheme of carrying out the substitution works at Glenamoy will enable the workers now employed by Min Fhéir, Teoranta to be switched over to the new activities.
But there is plenty of bog alongside where the workers are engaged at present. There was no necessity for closing down the grass meal development company. There was no reason why the Minister should not start his other experiments alongside.
That goes to the whole economic roots of the scheme. An examination by the committee convinced the committee, convinced me and convinced the Government (1) that there is no home market for grass meal; (2) that there is no evidence of any export market being available, and (3) that the price at which grass meal would be produced by Min Fhéir Teoranta was so high that the company would start off, at the beginning of its career, with a substantial loss and that it could not hope even to get rid of its products unless by muscling in on other companies which are at present producing grass meal.
Mr. Lemass
Did the directors of the company agree with those conclusions?
I could not say. The directors of the company, of course, are merely the instruments of Government policy.
Mr. Lemass
Did they agree with those conclusions?
I do not know, but I do not think it affected the fundamental truth of the conclusions.
Mr. Lemass
The Minister has said that the report will not be published. Has it not been published already to some members of the Dáil?
No; the report is an inter-departmental committee report and it is not customary to publish them.
Mr. Lemass
Is the Minister aware that a member of the Dáil has made a speech in which he has indicated that he has read the report and was able to draw conclusions from it—Deputy Lindsay of North Mayo.
I have not seen any such speech by any Deputy. No Deputy got any copy of the report from me and I do not believe any Deputy got the report from any other source.
Mr. Lemass
If Deputy Lindsay made a speech in which he conveyed that he had seen the report, he was talking through his hat?
That question should be put to Deputy Lindsay.
Is the Minister aware that the companies now producing grass meal in this country are not in a position to meet the requirements of the market at all?
That is not so; and if the Deputy will show me or furnish me with evidence of inability to supply the market I will have the matter examined.
I can give the Minister plenty of evidence that, in spite of the fact that Gowla bog is producing to its utmost in grass meal, it is unable to meet half the demand for that product at the present time and will not be able to meet it for many a year to come.
Of course, there are other sources of production of grass meal products, of which apparently the Deputy is not aware.
It is not a question of that. Sufficient is not being made in the country at the present time.
Would the Minister say if the company received offers from a Six County factory for the purchase of all the grass meal it could produce?
Not that I know of.
Is the Minister not aware that there are hundreds of thousands of pounds spent per year in importing high protein food, which is what grass meal is?
I am aware of this fact, that this company could not, on its own figures, supply grass meal except at a price substantially higher than the present price—and that is only its own estimate before it gets into production. I am satisfied that, on a realistic appraisal of the yield per acre of grass sown on this reclaimed land, the company's price for grass meal as produced there would be such that its product could only be sold at a price substantially higher than that charged by existing grass meal producers, and that if they endeavoured to sell grass meal in competition with other producers in the country they could do so only by starting off with a heavy deficit on the sale of their products and that they would have to face up to a continuing and, in fact, a permanent deficit on the working of this company.
The Government decided that it was much more profitable nationally and much more beneficial to the workers of the area, that we should instead carry out large scale schemes of experimental afforestation on portion of the land and that in addition the Department of Agriculture should be asked to carry out certain experiments there to see to what profitable and economically rewarding use this land could be put, after treatment at the hands of the Department of Agriculture. These new activities will provide much more employment for the workers in this area and a much more reliable type of employment there, than any type of employment that can be provided by Min Fhéir Teoranta, even on activities which would have to be subsidised.
Mr. Lemass
Would the Minister consider consulting the directors of the company and those who have worked on the spot, to see if they agree with the conclusions of the civil servants who condemn them?
When I consulted the officials of my Department, asking who was responsible for this scheme in the first instance, I could find no one to stand over it.
Mr. Lemass
Was the scheme not the product of a number of people who are very competent to advise in this matter? We should not let their scheme be condemned by civil servants without those people being heard. Many other schemes of this kind are going to be sabotaged at the behest of some civil servants.
This is merely the sabotage of waste, which is good.