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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 8 Jul 1959

Vol. 176 No. 6

Committee on Finance. - Undeveloped Areas (Amendment) Bill, 1959—Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time".

The Undeveloped Areas Act was passed here in 1952. It was passed with, I think, the stated intention of providing employment and stemming the flight from the land, and the flight from the country generally, through the medium of giving certain financial encouragement to people to set up industries in the scheduled areas mainly west of the Shannon. I do not think anybody would criticise the Government for trying to cope with the problem of unemployment and emigration from certain parts of the country.

That Act has now been in operation for about six years. I wonder if the Government and the Minister for Industry and Commerce consider that it was worthwhile. I have never heard either the previous Minister, or any member of the Government, boast that the Act was very successful. The Minister last night, in reply to a question, said that the Act had provided employment for something like 4,500 people.

For 5,500. There might be some break up of that figure as between the Industrial Grants Act and the Undeveloped Areas Act, but the total is 5,500.

We will compromise at 5,000. I do not know that it has been worthwhile in relation to the substantial amount of money given. I have no prejudice at all against the people of the West. Anything that can be done to keep people within the four walls, so to speak, of the Republic of Ireland will have my whole-hearted support. I have always thought, however, that what appeared to be special attention to a certain part of the country was unfair to the rest of the country.

It is true there has been substantial emigration from the West, particularly from the Province of Connacht. There has also been substantial emigration from other parts of the country. If we have regard to the unemployment figures over the last five or six years, we will find that, whilst there may have been a large number of unemployed in the undeveloped areas, there has also been a substantial number of unemployed in the rest of the country.

As I said, the Undeveloped Areas Act was passed by this House in an effort to alleviate unemployment and stop emigration. At that time, 1952, no special measures were taken by way of industrial encouragement to alleviate unemployment and stop emigration from the South of Ireland, from the Midlands, from the East and certain portions of the North. In 1956, still maintaining the policy of help to the counties west of the Shannon, the Government introduced the Industrial Grants Act to give financial encouragement to those desirous of setting up factories or industries in Leinster, the major portion of Munster, and in certain parts of the North. That Act is now being repealed by this amendment of the Undeveloped Areas Act.

As I said, there has been substantial emigration from Connaught, evidence of which is contained in the Statistical Abstract of Ireland, 1958, which shows that in the province of Connaught, in 1956, compared with 1951, there were 25,674 fewer people. That is a formidable figure. It should be known that there was also a substantial reduction in the population of Leinster, not taking into consideration the City and County of Dublin. During that period the population of Leinster, not counting Dublin City and County, fell by 11,155. In Munster the reduction was 21,727 and in the three Ulster counties over which we have jurisdiction the population fell by 17,389.

Some people may think that there is a special case to be made for Connaught in view of the fact that so many people left that province. I think that any measures the Government might introduce in the name of underdevelopment should not be confined to any area but should provide assistance for the establishment of industries over the whole Twenty-six Counties.

I opposed in speech—not by vote, because I am always prepared to give measures that are introduced in this House a trial—the Undeveloped Areas Bill introduced in 1952 because, while there is room for a substantial number of people West of the Shannon, there are far too many people there, and having regard to the lack of opportunity and the limited resources that exist there, the area cannot carry the population that Governments have tried to help it to carry over the last 40 years. When the plantations took place under a British régime, about three centuries ago, the people from Leinster, Ulster and Munster were banished to Connaught because the British at the time realised that it was the poorest part of the country and the worst punishment they could give the Irish was to send them, as Cromwell said, "to Hell or to Connaught". I do not understand why we should try to keep people in an area where the resources are so meagre.

If I were to provide encouragement for the establishment of industry I would put the emphasis on the establishment of industry in an area which, in the first place, has a tradition for industry and which, in the second place, is adjacent to Great Britain which supplies our raw material, in the main, and which is near the eastern ports from which we can export anything we have for export. It must be freely admitted that, so far as industry is concerned, nearly the whole country is under-developed and, for that reason, I would favour, much more than I do this Bill, an extension of the Act passed in 1952 to provide the same facilities for the establishment of industry in any part of the Twenty-Six Counties.

The emphasis on aid for counties west of the Shannon raises a certain amount of suspicion in the minds of many people from the East, the midlands and the South. It may be alleged that they have bad minds. I do not know whether all this financial assistance, big or small, given to Western counties is to provide work or to preserve the Gaeltacht. I would hate to think—and I know it is not given as such—that this financial assistance by way of encouragement of the language, encouragement of industry, encouragement of the making of tourist roads, and all that sort of thing, is relief or dole but people from other parts of the country have a justifiable objection when they allege that special treatment is given to people who happen to be born in an area where, so many years ago, Irish was spoken and in some parts of which Irish is still spoken. That is another subject—the revival of the language and the methods that should be adopted to revive it all over the country and I do not intend to develop that, nor would I be allowed to do so in this debate.

As I have said, up to the present time, the areas which are not scheduled as undeveloped areas can avail of the Industrial Grants Act, under which they can obtain a grant for the building of a factory of two-thirds of the cost and a maximum of £50,000.

It is a maximum of £50,000, in any case. That is not at all as attractive as the grants available in the undeveloped areas but, yet, that small assistance is now being taken away by the proposal to repeal the Industrial Grants Act, 1956. This Bill makes a provision which is intended to substitute to some extent for the Industrial Grants Act. Under Section 2 it is proposed to give certain grants for the acquisition of land, the construction of buildings and the provision of services and facilities in certain circumstances in areas outside the undeveloped areas, that is, in the whole of Leinster, the greater part of Munster, the Midlands and certain parts in the North but that type of assistance is given only when, to quote the section—

... the Board—

(a) are of opinion that there are sound reasons why an industrial undertaking cannot be established or developed in the undeveloped areas and that the undertaking is, having regard to its size, character or the probable extent to which its products are likely to be exported, of exceptional national importance, and,

(b) are satisfied that financial assistance by way of grant is necessary to ensure the establishment or development of the undertaking and that the undertaking will be of a reasonably permanent nature and will be carried on efficiently.

I do not think that is sufficient. In his proposals in this Bill the Minister should be much more specific and should reassure honest and sincere business men who want to establish a factory outside the undeveloped areas that they have a reasonably good chance of getting the benefits described in Section 2 of this Bill.

I do not know how the Bill will be operated. The Minister and the Taoiseach have not given us examples as to the type of factory, outside the undeveloped areas, that would qualify for the grant described in Section 2 but I visualise that there could be a kind of blackmail by, say, a Dutchman, a Belgian, a German or an American who comes to this country and says: "I have £2 million and I want to establish a factory." It is a factory which, in ordinary circumstances, would be required to go to the undeveloped areas, but the foreigner says: "I want it in Navan, Kildare, Wexford or Waterford." In those circumstances the Board will have no option but to say: "Build it wherever you like. We want a factory and we shall give you the full grant." Unfortunately, that will not be the case if, in a small town, such as Kells, Gorey, Ferns or Thomastown, ten or twelve Irish business men get together and have, say, £50,000. If they want to build a factory, what will the attitude of the Board be? Will the Board require them, as they can, to establish the industry west of the Shannon or in some other part of the undeveloped areas and, if they do not comply with the direction of the Board, will they be deprived of the grant? Under the Industrial Grants Act, 1956, without any of these fancy provisos, that same group of Irishmen could get a certain grant up to a maximum of £50,000 and did not have to crawl or to make a special case to the board to qualify for it.

The policy of the Government seems to be that the factories west of the Shannon or in the undeveloped areas are factories intended for the manufacture of goods or commodities for home consumption and that the onus is on the other parts of the country, particularly the east, to manufacture products which will be for export only.

I agree with the Taoiseach that emphasis in this country at present should be on the establishment of factories which will produce commodities for export. We should bend all our efforts to achieve that objective. In view of the tremendous amount of goods we import and in view of the fact that we have had and still have a difficult situation with regard to our balance of payments problem, I think people or groups of people who want to establish factories to manufacture goods for home consumption should also get encouragement. There are two sides to the balance of payments problem—the import side and the export side. Industries which manufacture goods which in the ordinary course of events would be imported are worthy of encouragement at least equal to that given to those manufacturing commodities for export.

The Taoiseach said yesterday evening that we should be prepared to keep in step with the Six Counties, Britain and other countries. I wonder if the Government would not consider doing as they have done in Dundalk? I mentioned this on another occasion recently. At that time the Taoiseach, who was then Tánaiste, seemed to be moving in the direction in which I was speaking, namely, the establishment by the Government of factories for the manufacture of commodities not already being made here. The Government have done that in Dundalk.

It may be that some people will attempt to distinguish between Government assistance and assistance from the Industrial Credit Corporation, but the fact is that the Dundalk Engineering Works has been established by money for which the Government are primarily responsible and money raised by the Government from the people of the country as a whole. I do not see any objection to that. I had a particular objection to it in respect of Dundalk inasmuch as there was a suggestion and there still is a suggestion of keen competition with a firm that happens to be in my constituency manufacturing the same commodity. That, in present circumstances, is an aside.

In Dundalk, the Government have provided a substantial amount of money because they were confronted with an acute unemployment situation. Consequent upon the closing down of the G.N.R. and the workshops at Dundalk, the Government, the country and the Minister were confronted with a situation in that town in which 1,000 people were unemployed. If the Government had stuck rigidly to their strict policy, or the policy announced by Deputy de Valera when he was Taoiseach, nothing would have been done in Dundalk unless private enterprise stepped in. However, the Government knew very well that private enterprise would not step in. They could not allow a situation in which 1,000 Dundalk people were to remain unemployed. They had to do something. They raised the money through the Industrial Credit Corporation. As was announced by the Taoiseach when he was Minister for Industry and Commerce, the result has been that practically all of the 1,000 persons have been absorbed into employment.

In any provincial town where 1,000 persons are unemployed, if we have 400 unemployed in Wexford or 20,000 unemployed in Dublin city, even if we have 150 unemployed in any provincial town, if the Government believe there is room for industry but that private enterprise will not fill in, is there anything wrong, morally or otherwise, in the Government establishing a factory with money raised from the people and giving the ordinary public an opportunity afterwards of subscribing to it and taking it over and then letting it be run under private enterprise? I do not think there is anything wrong in that.

Many countries which we regard as much more conservative than we are have done that. In the Six Counties, the Government have built factories and leased them out. We are not prepared to go even so far. I do not think anybody would say we are remotely as conservative as the Unionist Party in the Six Counties.

Since 1922, the Government have been very successful in the establishment of many enterprises. They have been successful in the establishment of a sugar industry; they have been successful in the establishment and in the running of the E.S.B.; they have been successful in respect of Steel Holdings in Cork. Bord na Móna is another and I could list three or four others. The Government in those instances took the initiative and provided the money. Now, thousands and thousands of Irishmen are working on these projects. Above all, they are working in their own country.

The Government would be justified, morally and otherwise, in providing industries themselves where private enterprise will not do so. Morally, it would be far better to do that than to allow practically 50,000 Irish men and women to go across to a foreign country every year—foreign in religion, mainly, and foreign in outlook. I do not say they are subject to great dangers over there but they have to live in a foreign country and that has an effect on every one of them.

There is no justification for any Government to sit back and say, in effect: "We cannot do anything; we are a private enterprise concern" whilst, at the same time, they can raise money to establish industry—they, who know the situation as far as exports and imports are concerned and the general establishment of industry. We have not much of a tradition in industry. For centuries, we have been regarded and treated by Britain as the garden of England. Any industry we have is relatively new. Even an industry 50 years old here is new. We have not much industrial tradition for it and, above all, we have no investment tradition.

I suppose that in America, Britain and many European countries, as well as many countries in the world in general, every third person one meets is an investor of some sort. He has some interest in the stock exchange and the stock market. Here, we do not know what it is because we have no such tradition. If we must depend on private enterprise for the establishment of industry, it will take us years to eradicate the twin evils of unemployment and emigration.

The Government say there is every reason for success in an industrial revival. The Government could do quite a lot to bring about that success by giving the example, by showing that they themselves have confidence in an industrial revival. The only way to do that is to establish industries themselves, with some private interest in them, with a small amount of private money but the bulk of it from the Government. When such an industry is on its feet, let the Government offer it to the general public to subscribe to and participate in it. I do not believe there is any use in depending on some German, Belgian or American, who may hop in and out of here every two or three months, for the establishment of industries. We have been more often disappointed than not. Every little town and every big town in Ireland has had rumours two or three times per year about this foreigner and that foreigner starting a factory. They have seldom if ever materialised.

The Minister should reconsider the whole position as far as the establishment of industries is concerned. This is another example of piecemeal legislation. We have had so many different measures and proposals for the encouragement of industry over the last six or seven years that we cannot advise anyone about the establishment of an industry. This idea of paying attention to a particular part of the country is something with which I do not agree at all. In the heel of the hunt it will only get abuse for the Minister and for the Government from all sides. If there is a general plan for the encouragement of industry all over the Twenty-Six Counties everybody will be satisfied. The unemployed and those who are obliged to emigrate will be particularly satisfied if the Government show they have confidence in an industrial revival and take the initiative in the establishment of industries which will keep Irish boys and girls at home.

It is now some eight years since the Minister, as Parliamentary Secretary to the Government, introduced the Undeveloped Areas Bill in this House. Listening to him at the time we anticipated, as a result of that measure, a resurgence in regard to industrial development in the congested areas. The Minister led us to believe that it was the aim of the Government and the Department to ensure that every assistance possible, both technical and financial, would be given to the establishment of industries in the more remote and congested parts of the country.

What have we here today from the very same person in the role of Minister for Industry and Commerce? We have a Bill repealing the Undeveloped Areas Act of 1951. That is what this measure is tantamount to doing. It is giving to foreigners and others who may have an idea of establishing industries here somewhat similar terms to those previously given in the undeveloped areas. It is all very fine for people from areas contiguous to the city of Dublin and for people in the eastern parts of the country, the midlands and other such districts, to speak on this measure and welcome more industrial development there. That is not the position so far as we in the congested districts are concerned. I am speaking for an area, West Cork, from which the people are fleeing and have fled in the years gone by. We are now reaching a position where there will be as many West Cork people over in Britain as can be found in West Cork.

We thought eight years ago when the Minister was Par. Sec. to the Government and when the Undeveloped Areas Bill was enacted that the Government would relieve the position by establishing industries, and so on, but not a brown farthing has come into the constituency I represent. The Minister may say there was no local initiative, or that there was not sufficient local capital made available but, having regard to the exceptional circumstances which obtain in such areas as West Cork and indeed on the whole western seaboard, there is a moral obligation on the Government to come to the assistance of these helpless areas. Nothing whatsoever has come from that Act and in the month of July, 1959, the Minister is repealing it.

What will happen under this measure? The Government have set it out clearly in the various Sections. Any local group of industrialists or any foreign group of potential industrialists who come along to this new board, working like all the Government boards in the most secret manner possible, will be asked the question: "Would you like to set up this factory in the undeveloped areas?" If these people say: "We would prefer the more industrialised parts of the country, places nearer to Dublin," that satisfies the terms of this Bill. If the grant seeker says he does not intend to establish the industry in the undeveloped areas he will be told presumably by the board that everything is well and he will be given the grant in respect of the eastern part of the country, the more well-to-do parts.

That is a very serious situation. A Government must cater for the country as a whole and bear in mind the welfare of all sections of the people irrespective of who or what they are and irrespective of whether their abode is in one county or in another. More than one-fifth of the population of Ireland is centred in Dublin city and surburban districts. Dublin and the areas contiguous to it are well industrialised. Having regard to the size of the country, 26,000 square miles and a population of less than three million, to have one-fifth of that population centred in a small number of square miles, makes this city top heavy.

I am making comparisons only because previous speakers have made comparisons between one area and another. Everyone knows that the province of Leinster is not too badly off. The people there have good land and there are a large number of industrialists scattered all over the area. Indeed that could be said for——

For Munster too.

For parts of Munster, North Munster and for parts of my own county of Cork. However, it could not be said for the western seaboard and for the area from which I come. Does the Minister feel that, as Minister for Industry and Commerce, there is any obligation on him to help such districts which cannot put forward the technical assistance or the necessary financial contribution to qualify for grants? I referred in the House some time ago to allegations that this board, which is supposed to take charge of all industrial development in the country, deterred people from establishing industries in undeveloped areas, including my own district of West Cork. When I asked the Taoiseach, who was then Minister for Industry and Commerce, to make a statement in the House, he sidetracked the question which is a rather suspicious way of dealing with such an important item.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce is a Cork man, as I am. He is not too far removed from West Cork. He has a fair idea of these allegations and people who make them. I think that when serious allegations were made—I am not positive whether they were correct or incorrect—there was an obligation on a responsible Minister to answer the charges and say whether they were well founded or not. So far, these allegations have not been answered.

As far as we in the congested districts are concerned, we cannot see any ray of hope in this Bill. It is going to make us worse than we were. Any chance we had of securing outsiders, if we were unable to get our own people to develop our areas, is now going by the board under this Bill because the Bill gives to potential industrialists almost the same measure of grants in other areas as was obtainable in the congested districts.

My main reason for contributing to the debate is to protest against the terms of the Bill and to remind the Minister of his assurances in this House some eight years ago when he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Government. Were it not for the fact that the Minister has been only a short time in office as Minister for Industry and Commerce, I would have been asking him some more questions regarding this measure.

I would want to know from him how the £2½ million already expended has been disposed of, where it has gone, what fruits accrued from it and whether any of the industries which were established went bankrupt, as we are led to believe that some of them did. I would want to know whether it it true or otherwise that a number of applications recently sent from congested districts—there were a few of them from my own constituency—were turned down and for what reasons.

It would not be fair for me to pose these questions to the Minister to-day as he has been only a very short time in office, a matter of a few weeks, but later on, I hope to pose these questions to him. I hope to get the information required, information to which this House is entitled.

Let me conclude on this note. I wish the Minister well in his important role as Minister for Industry and Commerce. Even though it may not be his own fault that he was not so satisfactory in his efforts to improve industrial development when he had a somewhat similar office some years ago, I hope that in the years to come he will meet with success and that we will possibly hear of something from him in West Cork and that, through his help and the help of the Government, something will be established there to help keep the people at home.

In case the Chair might feel aggrieved, I do not want to refer to the promises and assurances which the Minister's predecessor made regarding industrial development. I know these promises were made to get votes at the elections and that they were made to deceive people. They succeeded in that. I think it would be unfair for me to burden the Minister with such statements made by his predecessor, the Taoiseach.

I presume that this new enactment is like all previous enactments of a somewhat similar character and is meant to provide increased employment in the State. Over the past six years, we had a series of Acts with that intent, beginning with the Undeveloped Areas Act, 1952, down to the Bill which we are considering to-day. I think it might be an opportune time, if I am in order in doing so, to consider the provisions in retrospect of some of these enactments and the success they achieved, and see if the present measure is likely to achieve a greater degree of success, particularly in those parts of the country outside the areas at present scheduled as undeveloped.

Some of the previous speakers made a comparison between the benefits contained in the Bill and the benefits contained in the Undeveloped Areas Act, 1952, and the later Industrial Grants Act, 1956. It was suggested that, due to the introduction of this measure, the undeveloped areas will suffer to some extent at least. Under the 1952 Undeveloped Areas Act, which roughly covered the old congested districts, mainly the province of Connacht, the county of Kerry and parts of West Cork, very substantial concessions were made, provided certain conditions were implemented to the satisfaction of Foras Tionscal and provided the Board was satisfied that the industry to be established would maintain employment in such areas. Among the benefits for a person starting up, whether an Irish national or an outside man coming in, the Board were prepared on their behalf to acquire land either outright or assist them by giving them grants to acquire land themselves, to provide sites for premises, to make grants up to 50 per cent. of the cost of machinery and equipment, to make grants for the training of workers during a specified period and to make grants for the construction or repair of roads and bridges and grants for houses, buildings, dwellings and canteens. It is possible for the local authorities themselves to remit up to two-thirds of the rates on the premises concerned. The Minister could order the Electricity Supply Board to supply current, power and light at the lowest rates operating in the State.

These were very substantial concessions, indeed, and, as the Minister stated, either in his introductory statement or in reply to a question, a sum of between £4 million and £5 million has so far been expended under the provisions of the Undeveloped Areas Act and somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 people have been put into new industrial employment.

In 1957, the Act was amended to some small degree, mainly technically. Then we passed on to the next piece of legislation which is intended to offset to some degree at least the unenviable position under which some of the parts of the country outside the undeveloped areas were labouring, in particular counties and areas contiguous to the undeveloped areas but which could not hope to encourage development because of the fact that they were so close to the areas where these very substantial benefits were available.

The Industrial Grants Act, 1956, was introduced. That made available substantial sums of money for the erection of industrial buildings. One of the criticisms I have levelled against that Act in the past, when asking the Minister's predecessor to consider its amendment, was that no provision was made in it to assist the purchase and installation of machinery and equipment. Otherwise there was a good deal to be said in recommendation of the Act. It was a simple one which set out to provide certain aids to industrialists intending to establish industries outside the undeveloped areas. It was also a short Act which was easily worked and of course it was worked under the scheme of the Industrial Development Authority which has had quite a considerable amount of experience in seeking new industries for the country and in knowing what the industrial requirements of the various areas were.

The actual working of that Act, particularly when it came to seeking grants, was extremely cumbersome to my certain knowledge. The fact that one had to go through a tedious procedure with An Foras Tionscal before receiving a grant, or even being approved for a grant, to my mind negatived the possible benefits of that Act to quite a considerable extent.

Later then, we had the Taoiseach introducing the Industrial Development (Encouragement of External Investment) Act, 1958, a measure which at the time was subjected to a good deal of criticism in this House, and not without reason. That Act sought to amend the Control of Manufactures Acts of 1932 and 1934. In my view then, and now, the main effect of that amending legislation was to confuse rather than to clarify the purpose of those two previous Acts. The very name and the length of that piece of legislation was indicative that it was anything but a clear cut and helpful piece of legislation, as I am sure the Minister's predecessor wished it to be.

That Act introduced us to such terms as "accepted commodities", "excluded companies", "certificates of exemption" and "unqualified companies". It continued the old system whereby new manufacture licences could be issued. A suggestion made to the Minister at that time, and not accepted by him, was that that amending Act could have been simplified merely by extending the provisions for the issuance of new manufacture licences and generally sweeping away all the difficulties in the way of outside capitalists, or outside financial interests, coming in here with technical knowledge to establish industries, particularly for export. I took the view that if you wanted to encourage outside capital to come in here you would want to take a radical and courageous step, clear away all the deadwood and give them every encouragement provided the industries were bona fide industries and were to engage in the export trade.

The main provisions of the present Bill are, first of all, that it repeals the Industrial Grants Act, 1956, and repeals small sections in the 1932 and 1934 Undeveloped Areas Acts. The wording in Section 2 of the Act to my mind is so ambiguous and leaves so many loopholes for either acceptance or evasion by the Board—I assume the Board to be An Foras Tionscal, although it is not mentioned in the introductory paragraphs—that in its present form I do not think the Act can carry out the benefits which the Minister, I assume, intends for it. I quote from Section 2, subsection (1):

"Whenever the Board—

(a) are of opinion that there are sound reasons why an industrial undertaking cannot be established or developed in the undeveloped areas and that the undertaking is, having regard to its size, character or the probable extent to which its products are likely to be exported, or exceptional national importance, and".

I mentioned already the difficulties in the way of securing grants through the present legislation, the Industrial Grants Act, and the Undeveloped Areas Act, but if the proposed legislation goes through with that paragraph, it would be open to so many interpretations either against the applicants concerned, or possibly too much in their favour, that it would largely make the whole Act inoperative. In considering any legislation surely we have now reached the stage when, with the exception of Dublin we should regard the rest of the country as undeveloped and underdeveloped. In presenting any new legislation to the House the Minister might have considered the bold step of introducing either an amending Bill or else a completely new Bill, putting on the same plane every area in the country outside, say, the capital, Dublin, and probably an area of 20 to 25 miles around it.

When our Ministers and representatives go abroad they are at pains to advertise the fact that we are an undeveloped, an underdeveloped and a developing country. If that is the case surely it is logical to apply to this country and to all the country outside of Dublin—which has advantages which no other centre unfortunately possesses—the same measures to assist in industrial development. It does not matter very much in the long run, whether a man with a wife and family is employed in say, West Cork, West Limerick, West Kerry, or the Midlands, so long as he is retained in this country and able to settle down here and bring up his family. As it would be to the benefit of the country as a whole Limerick City, Cork City, and Waterford City, or centres in the Midlands, could be developed far beyond their present capacity. That calls for some national effort as they are all fairly big centres of population. The way to attack this problem is to attack it on a regional basis and to see these centres built up.

If I put forward the case of Limerick, I do so because it is a good example of the large type of city that I should like to see developed. It is sufficiently largely populated to be able to provide the skilled labour force that most industrialists look for. It is also big enough to provide the amenities which the workers now require and which they regard as necessary to the way of life which is now regarded as their right and their due. If this Bill had been approached with that viewpoint, I think the Minister would be presenting us with a different type of legislation. I do welcome the Bill in this regard, that it is certainly helping to offset, to a degree, the unfair position of areas, particularly those immediately outside the undeveloped areas.

Of course, the provisions included in the Bill are not as attractive. I think that is very obvious to anyone who has read the older Acts, and that is why I am pressing the case to have all these different pieces of legislation put on the same basis, codified, or made into one Bill or one Act encouraging industrial development throughout the State. I think the matter should be approached from that point of view rather than have this sort of piecemeal legislation which, for some few years, will benefit one part of the country at the cost of other parts of the country.

I do not think it should be forgotten that any grants given have to be provided out of taxation. They have to come out of the taxpayers' pockets, whether through a tax on tobacco, beer, or income. Everybody has to pay and it is difficult enough for the ordinary trader, businessman, worker and professional man nowadays to have to pay high taxes, without at the same time helping, with those taxes, to direct employment away from his own area.

The Minister mentioned in his introductory speech that this piece of legislation was intended to assist in the implementation of the Government's Programme for Economic Expansion. I have re-read the White Paper, the white booklet, and nowhere in that can I find any indication that the Government proposed to introduce this piece of legislation to assist in industrial development, and nowhere can I find, in Appendix 1 or 2, any reference that would suggest that this piece of legislation is in any way associated with the five year programme for economic expansion. The only reference to industry in Appendix 1 or 2 of this document is—I quote from Appendix 1 —"Industrial Development (General); Expansion of credit through the Industrial Credit Company," and also reference to research, efficiency, productivity, technical training, etc. There is no indication in that, that I can see, that this piece of legislation is intended to boost or help industrial employment in any way whatsoever, so I do not think it is quite correct to say it is a further step in the implementation of the Government's programme for industrial expansion.

I do not want to quote at length from this programme. A number of Deputies have already quoted from it and to quote extensively would only hold up the debate considerably. However, it is interesting to read in it the references to the development of private enterprise and, if these references are genuine, I do suggest that, in attacking the problem of industrial development, more help might be given to existing industries and existing businesses. The Minister's predecessor has been at pains to reiterate on a number of occasions that any assistance, or any grants in the form of financial assistance available to outside interests, are also available to Irish promoters of industries. That is only true in part.

If an existing Irish firm or business wants to extend its business, it cannot get any of the benefits—it cannot get a grant to do so—but the same business house, the same trader, through his own taxation, corporate taxation, and the taxation of his employees, is providing the money whereby grants are made available in other areas. I feel that any old existing industry that is prepared to extend and give additional employment, whether it is for export or for home production, should be encouraged to do so in the same way as outside interests and new interests are getting assistance to establish new industries. It seems to me to be immaterial whether an industry is a new one or an old one. The basic consideration should be: is it going to give additional employment and is it going to benefit the country as a whole?

One matter referred to by Deputy Cosgrave was the multiplicity of organisations which we now have dealing with industrial development, in one fashion or another, and I should like to support the views he expressed on that. There should be some simplification or some reorganisation of these bodies. At the moment we have An Foras Tionscal, and the Industrial Development Authority which is now largely being divested of most of its powers and is merely a promoting organisation. That is a pity. I think the Industrial Development Authority was a useful body. As I said a few minutes ago, it had considerable experience over the years in matters of grants and, rather than divest it of its powers, particularly in regard to the financial side of helping industry, I should be rather more inclined to give it more powers and to make financial capital available to it, so that, not alone could it assist in the enticing and encouraging of industries to Ireland, but it could also take the first practical step in assisting outside industrialists in setting up their plants here. If that step were taken, the necessity for this new An Foras Tionscal would not arise and it would generally simplify the whole elaborate process by which an applicant has to secure a grant.

Then we have the Industrial Credit Company which is, of course, working on a completely different basis and which, I think, is doing a good job. We have also C.T.T. which, again, is promoting the export of industrial goods and more recently we have the Shannon Free Airport Development Company, which has a specific job in the development of industries at Shannon Airport. Also, if not strictly concerned with industrial development, we have Bord Fáilte and the Irish Tourist Association, and finally, though probably I should have put it first on the list, is the Minister's Department, the Department of Industry and Commerce, which is now to be sub-divided into two Ministries.

In a small country with less than 3,000,000 of a population, we have all these various agencies set up to encourage industrial expansion, and I have the feeling that this whole elaborate machinery could be simplified to a very large extent. I do not mean only the legislation, which I have mentioned already, which I think is over-elaborate, but the agencies for carrying out the legislation could also be reorganised. If that were done, it would save a considerable amount of cost to the country.

There is one point I should like to mention, that is, the tendency up to now, when dealing with applicants for grants or loans for the establishment of industry, to turn a blind eye to anybody who wants to set up a small industry. Like other facets of Irish life, we have now got into the habit of thinking in terms of the large unit.

Unless we can talk in terms of hundreds of thousands of pounds, no really serious consideration is given to the application. In our circumstances, a country of small businessmen and small industries, I think particular attention—in fact, priority—should be given to applicants who are prepared to set up small local industries, especially in rural areas, employing perhaps only five or ten or fifteen people. If more attention were given to that facet of industrial development and less to gigantic industries, some of which I am afraid are of very doubtful advantage buttressed as they are by grants and subsidies, I think in the long run it would lead to more advantageous industrial development throughout the country as a whole.

I shall put down a few amendments on the Committee Stage of the Bill. As I said at the outset I welcome the Bill from the point of view that it does something to redress the present unfavourable balance between areas outside the undeveloped areas and areas inside but, to my mind, it does not tackle the fundamental problem which is that the country as a whole outside Dublin is undeveloped. As somebody else said, I think. legislation of this kind can deal with the problem only to a very limited extent.

On first looking at this Bill, it would appear that it will confer a good deal of benefit on the country as a whole. Everyone is glad to know that the Government intend to place more money at the disposal of those who plan to start industries here but at the same time I should like to sound a note of warning. This appears to me to contain another considerable restrictive practice. When I first read in the White Paper on Economic Expansion that it was proposed to transfer a certain amount of authority from the Industrial Development Authority to An Fores Tionscal I did not feel very happy about it.

The position at present is this. Speaking from my own point of view. if I get anybody in Europe or anywhere else interested in setting up a certain industry in my constituency, I would go to the Industrial Development Authority. When the people concerned come to this country I would bring them to the I.D.A. as I have already done and the Authority would be able to place before those intending to set up the industry all the schemes available from which they could benefit.

Under this Bill the system will be changed; there is no gainsaying that. Section 2 definitely places a restrictive practice on the I.D.A., on the incoming industrialist and on the promoter or public representative, whoever he may be, who is concerned in bringing these people to the country. If we want to secure the increased benefits offered under this Bill two things appear to be necessary. You must apply to An Foras Tionscal; they are the deciding body. They will decide whether it is in the national interest that the industry should be set up in the area concerned and they must also decide that there are sound reasons why it should not be set up in the undeveloped areas.

That places the undeveloped areas at a considerable advantage over every other part of the country. It might well be argued by Deputies who represent undeveloped areas that that is quite fair and just because these areas have suffered more from emigration and unemployment perhaps than other areas and they have fewer agricultural and other resources to fall back on. My reading of the situation is that if we are to develop this country and get anywhere with the industrialisation of Ireland as a whole we must rely on the raw materials available to us. I cannot help feeling that in centres such as Leinster, certain areas of Munster, perhaps some of the northern counties and some of the western countries that are not actually on the seaboard and are not distressed areas, we are likely to get more hope of basing industries on raw materials —that is by-products of agriculture— than in the undeveloped areas.

It only stands to reason that if you place a Board such as An Foras Tionscal in control whose object— whose duty I would almost say—is to develop these undeveloped areas they will naturally have a bias in that direction. I, therefore, want to warn Deputies that although this Bill may seem to indicate that the Government intends to distribute further largesse, to encourage further industrial development by this legislation, I wonder if that is the case. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that I am negotiating with industrialists in some outside country, as I have already done and as I am trying to do at the moment. Suppose when interviewing those people in the course of my travels abroad I say: "I want you to come to such and such an area. I can guarantee a certain amount of private capital and private enterprise in that area." They come and interview the parties concerned. These industrialists coming here, be they from the Common Market Area of Europe, from America, Britain or anywhere else, are not fools. They know the actual benefits available here. Mark you, it is a vital step for any non-nationals to take—to come here and set up an industry, tearing up roots abroad, putting money into development here and before setting up their industry, they want to know exactly what is available to them.

As I know the situation at the moment I can go to the I.D.A. who have all facilities to deal with the matter. They have all the knowledge and techniques at their disposal. From them we can find out what the party concerned may expect to get. This Bill changes that. I can put a rosy picture before them and say that the benefits have been considerably increased, that where before you could only get two-thirds of the cost or a maximum of £50,000 now more is available in the line of grants. But there is a snag; Section 2 comes into it again immediately. I cannot guarantee to them unless I am living in the undeveloped areas that all those benefits are available to them.

I agree with what the last speaker said. The tendency has been, in industrial development in Ireland, to concentrate everything in Dublin. It is only natural that that would happen because of the facilities there. There is a labour force continually at the disposal of industry; there is the harbour for shipping and the airport is available. The tendency therefore, is for everything to go there. Deputy Russell is quite right when he says any area outside Dublin is really an underdeveloped area. The curse of our economic history has been the lack of employment outside actual agricultural employment and afforestation in rural Ireland. The tendency has been for people to work towards Dublin hoping that, when they get into Dublin, they can secure employment. Industries, as a result, are concentrated in Dublin and different Governments have given facilities to set up industries.

As the last speaker said, huge sums of money have been expended in starting industries that have been able to function under protective tariffs. What is the result? The result is a growing tendency to unemployment not much advance in economic development and, with it, all the ills it carries, including emigration. I maintain it would be far better, if the Government is going to introduce legislation, to extend the benefits, to make the people free. That would allow every Deputy, or anyone who is working for the advancement of his country as a whole, to be in the position where he could say to whomever he gets hold of, or tries to bring in to develop his country: "There are the benefits; I can definitely assure you that you are entitled to these benefits." I cannot say that now.

I cannot say to anybody I get hold of—and, in actual fact, I am trying to get hold of someone at the moment, not for my own benefit but for that of the country as a whole—: "If you come in to my particular area, you will get these benefits." I could say that before this Bill. I could go to the Industrial Development Authority, who so far have been responsible for the development of industries here. I cannot do that in the future I can only say: "We can try to get you to come here," but we are not absolutely satisfied until An Foras Tionscal decides on two vital things—which I think should be deleted from this Bill altogether. These two things seem to be so vital that I wrote them down. I do not usually speak from notes, but I shall read them. They are: "That grants may be made available for projects outside the undeveloped areas only (1) if there are sound reasons for doing so and (2) if it is not possible to establish them in the undeveloped areas." I think that nullifies and destroys the whole Bill. The Minister is new to this office and he has inherited the Bill from his predecessor, but I would ask him to give serious consideration to this point.

It is not a question of local interest. It is not a question of the Gaeltacht undeveloped areas. It is purely a question of trying to create in this country some form of worthwhile industry based, if possible, on native raw materials and suitable a to the particular area concerned. A Bill to that extent, free from restrictive practices, free from Government control, as far as is possible, will mean more investment of private capital. When I say "private capital," I mean that what we want people outside this country for is not so much to give us the capital but to give us their technical know-how. We require them because of the fact that they are already an established firm of repute and have the marketing facilities and know how to put the product across. I believe there is plenty of money in this country willing to go into industry, if it is based on sound enterprise. The only way to get it is through a Bill which leaves it open, so that industry can come and set up in any part of Ireland likely to give employment and be beneficial to the national economy as a whole.

I had not intended to intervene, but I would certainly like to support the sentiment of Deputy Murphy, although I cannot accept his interpretation of this measure. I should like to oppose my viewpoint, speaking on behalf of one of the local undeveloped areas, against the combined body of argument put forward by Deputy Corish, Deputy Russell and the last speaker, Deputy Esmonde. I think Deputy Esmonde's interpretation of the Bill is not correct. As a matter of fact, listening to his development of the argument, I was half hoping that the Bill could be interpreted in the way he interprets it, for the sake of the undeveloped areas. The emphasis is now so greatly on exports, that any proposition such as he outlined is bound to receive the utmost favour under our present policy.

Deputy Corish went so far as to say that practically no Government expenditure should be made on any sort of industrial encouragement in what are described as undeveloped areas. He went back some 300 years in adducing arguments to support his viewpoint.

I said they should get the same all round.

Yes, but the Deputy went further and said that history had proved that it is a place which ought to be left more or less to its own resources, to whatever Providence would provide without the help of Government subventions, that we ought to be philosophical about it and take it that way. As a representative of the West, I say that possibly we ought to be philosophical about it. If it is just a matter of maintaining the largest population under the best conditions, producing the best possible goods and selling them in the best markets, then the distribution of population over 32 counties is not of great importance. However, we are not looking at it from that point of view; we believe the population should be spread as evenly as possible over the 32 counties and that whatever deficiencies nature has thrown up we should, by our manmade efforts try to supply.

With all due respect, I do not think those Deputies should emphasise on every possible occasion that we are being spoonfed and getting benefits not available elsewhere. Arguments along those lines will not bear examination. One Deputy referred to particular treatment applied in those areas and almost in the same sentence he referred to the Dundalk Engineering Works. Surely what happened in Dundalk was particular treatment to meet a particular problem? What about the effects in particular districts of various types of public expenditure, whether on C.I.E., on creameries, or in subsidies to agricultural rates? One can go over the whole field and find that particular treatment is being given to particular interests in places outside the undeveloped areas.

I appeal to Deputies elected for places outside the undeveloped areas to try to represent the national interest. You do not find the representatives of the undeveloped areas begrudging this development—which took place very largely, I admit, as a result of private enterprise—in those other areas. That very fact in itself indicates the need. The fact that private enterprise is attracted to those other places emphasises the need for special attention. If we have not got the means of agricultural production, about which there have been many references in speeches this evening, west of the Shannon, surely there ought to be some compensation provided, seeing that the State itself takes such a very important part in industrial development?

Deputy Esmonde's argument is essentially an argument for free trade. If we are to have free trade and a free-for-all, that is all right. Let these people come in from England, America, the Continent or elsewhere, and let them choose Wexford, Galway or elsewhere and choose their own industries and let them produce for Irish consumption or for European or world consumption. We have not that sort of set-up here. We are trying to take cognisance of outside factors in arranging policy for all our activities. Surely an even distribution of population is a very desirable end to aim at and try to achieve?

We know that, in the west of Ireland, it must largely be achieved through the development of industrial activities. Deputy Esmonde seemed to suggest we could not have any industries based on agricultural produce. I do not think that bears examination either. We have considerable live-stock resources and fish. If he had these agricultural products in mind, we can enter into competition with the other parts of the country, but we have not got the same tillage potential as the more favoured lands in Leinster and Munster.

I did not intend to take part in this debate at all but I was very much impressed by the striking contrast of the speeches of two Deputies in one small Party — the Labour Party — Deputy Corish and Deputy Murphy. They went in exactly opposite directions. I support very strongly the sentiments of Deputy Murphy but I do not accept his interpretation of what the Bill proposes to do.

That manages to go in three different directions all at the one time.

Surely in a Party of 78 members there is a little more latitude and scope for these divergencies than in a Party of half a dozen?

And Deputy Boland took it all yesterday.

From my reading of the speeches in the daily papers, he gave very good reasons for supporting the action of the Minister for External Affairs in the United Nations.

It was about time somebody from Fianna Fáil got up and said something in the House.

He pointed out that the Fine Gael Party had pinned their colours to neutrality in 1949.

We cannot have another debate on that point on the Undeveloped Areas Bill.

I agree, but I think I shall have to absolve myself from blame.

If the Deputy will get absolution from nobody else, he might as well give it to himself.

The Lord helps those who help themselves. Deirtear gur maith le Dia Cúnamh. I want to bring this contrast between Deputy Murphy and Deputy Corish to the attention of the Minister. I take it that when he is getting advice tending in two opposite directions, it is some evidence that he has produced a measure of some merit. I would much prefer if I were able to ask the Minister to accept what I think is Deputy Esmonde's interpretation of this measure, but I do not think I can do that.

An element of rationalisation is now being introduced as a result of the experience of the Industrial Grants Act and the Undeveloped Areas Act which will result in the application of a stricter test to industrial promotions in the future. I know that possibly has been made a necessity because, with the Free Trade Area and one thing or another in the offing, we shall have to prepare ourselves to produce at competitive prices. No one, taking the interest of the country as a whole, can cavil at that; but I do not think that the Deputies outside the undeveloped areas have any great cause for complaint at all. The basis of the Industrial Credit Act, in the first instance, was not one that could recommend itself either to representatives of urban interests or representatives of the undeveloped areas.

The Undeveloped Areas Act was a positive measure to attract industries to the undeveloped areas, to avoid complete socialisation and to maintain a sufficient element of private enterprise. On the other hand, the Industrial Grants Act struck me as being a measure to deter or discourage promoters from going into the cities and also from going into the undeveloped areas. To that extent, it was negative in character. That character of assistance to industrial promotions in the country has now been limited by this measure. It is laudable on the part of the Minister that he is doing what Deputy Russell referred to. He is amalgamating some of the agencies which have been used for this purpose. I take it that there will now be only one Board rather than two, An Foras Tionscal and the Industrial Development Authority? I take it that unity of administration will be achieved? I hope that the exigencies of both the home and foreign markets will not be such as to require the Board to reduce or mitigate in any way the effects of this very desirable legislation for the benefit of industrial groups in the western areas.

I should like to stress one fact and then I shall probably have no more to say. I want to refer to a remark made by Deputy Corish with regard to the home market and exports. He suggested that the industries in the undeveloped areas should be designed principally for the home market.

I did not.

All right. If the Deputy did not say that, I accept his explanation. In any event, let me emphasise for the Minister the point I wanted to make in relation to it. My misinterpretation of the Deputy has been a reminder to me of something I want to stress for the Minister's benefit and I hope he will be able to give practical attention to it. I had an experience a few years ago of an industrialist in Dublin who wished to establish a branch of his industry in my constituency. He examined the matter very fully, and subsequently came to me and said that the proposal could not be carried out because the proposed location of the industry and the consequent transport costs would be such as to render his product entirely incapable of being marketed in competition with the products of industries located in more central parts of the country. He said to me: "If I had an exports market, if I were to manufacture for an export market, I could go to your constituency because I would not be faced with this entirely unfair competition."

Arising from that experience, I should like to suggest to the Minister that, no matter what other Deputies may say with regard to this matter of choosing locations for industries that will provide goods mainly for export, these areas should get the fullest and most preferential consideration possible. That is the main point which I want to stress and bring to the notice of the Minister.

I want to refer Deputies to Volume 128 of our Official Report. If they turn to Column 522, they will find the debate on the Second Stage of the Undeveloped Areas Bill on the 6th December, 1951 in the course of which I said:

I want to warn the Deputies who represent the Gaeltacht in this House that they are being sold down the river.

I want to warn them that the Minister for Industry and Commerce does not give two hoots about the Gaeltacht.

The then Minister for Industry and Commerce is the Taoiseach now, and I heard him in this House last night declare that he accepted the proposition that one of the consequences of this Bill, which he is now sponsoring with the Minister for Industry and Commerce, is that it will operate to move the people out of the Gaeltacht to employment elsewhere.

I do not think that is a fair assessment of what he said.

I think I heard him say it. I think he said that he accepted that a consequence of this Bill would be that instead of bringing industry into the Gaeltacht, the tendency would be to move the surplus employable population out of the Gaeltacht into industries more strategically placed in other parts of the country.

I do not think he referred to the population as such, but however, I shall leave it to the Deputy.

Did he not refer to the movement of surplus employable persons from the Gaeltacht into other areas where industries might be established as a consequence of this Bill?

I did not understand him to say that.

I understood him to say it and I was amazed. I was watching Deputy Brennan from West Donegal and Deputy Carty from Galway and it appeared to me that they were going to sink down through the floor. I then remembered saying to them seven years ago: "You are being taken for a ride and you do not know it." I took the trouble of looking up the Official Report to find the very words I used on that occasion.

There must be some reality to our proceedings in this House. It is all very well for the Minister for Agriculture to tell us that we ought to forget all that has gone before. We should not unduly dwell on what has gone before, but only a fool disregards past experience if he is in search of wisdom for future performance. Do Deputies seriously doubt the origin of the Undeveloped Areas Bill? If they do, they should look up the debate that took place on it. This Bill was brought in, in the Autumn of 1951, immediately after a general election. It was quite notorious that in that election the Fianna Fáil Party had lost a number of seats in the west of Ireland, and that they were extremely solicitous to reconsolidate their position in that area, and they also set themselves out as being peculiarly solicitous for its future.

Speaking on this Bill after the then Taoiseach, Deputy Cosgrave recapitulated the things we had been trying to do for the congested areas, notably the Connemara scheme which the Fianna Fáil Government had just scrapped at the urgent instance of Deputy Bartley. I direct the attention of the House to Column 257 of Volume 128.

Which scheme was that?

The scheme under which we initiated proceedings for blasting the rocks from the small holdings in Connemara.

The one you described as putting the rocks into Galway Bay. Surely the Deputy does not stand over that?

I do, and the scheme we initiated for developing fishing along the coast and which we followed with other schemes.

Well, now, with all the Deputy's extravagances, I do not accept his word that he stands over that if he has examined the work which he did.

And all the other schemes we had in hand in Connemara at that time. At Column 257, Deputy Cosgrave said:—

As far as we are concerned, we welcome the Bill. We had taken some modest steps to help these congested areas.

A Deputy interjected: "They were modest," and Deputy Cosgrave went on:—

The result, Deputy, is that you lost a seat in Mayo, another in Roscommon, two in Galway, another in Kerry and a satellite in Sligo-Leitrim.

It was to remedy that situation that the Bill was brought in, to provide grants of exceptional dimensions for those who were prepared to establish factories in the underdeveloped areas. I knew perfectly well what the purpose of the Bill was. I knew perfectly well that the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, the present Taoiseach, did not give two hoots about the Gaeltacht and I remember that on another occasion the late Senator Connolly, who spoke for the Fianna Fáil Party, said that, in his opinion. the Gaeltacht should be left to the seagulls and the people taken out of it.

That is the Dublin mentality and that is the Dublin approach to the Gaeltacht. That is the approach to the Gaeltacht of people who live in cities. Mark you, some people even leave the Gaeltacht and take up residence in cities and they very quickly become infected with the same mentality as those who are born, bred and reared in cities. The people in the cities do not believe that anybody can have a happy life in the Gaeltacht or in the congested areas. When they go down there and see the conditions under which the people work and live, the people of Dublin, of Cork and of Limerick cannot believe that people who have to work so hard, as do the residents in the Gaeltacht, and have such limited resources at their disposal can be happy. Those of us, however, who were born and reared in the area know that the people who are born there love their homes and want to stay in the area, if they can, and make a living there, if they are given modest and reasonable help.

I admit that as a politician this Undeveloped Areas (Amendment) Bill suits me because it extends these grants to my constituency. It is now open to my constituents to get a grant under this Bill, something denied them in the previous Bill. I waited with a deputation from the town of Clones not long ago on Deputy Hilliard, who was then Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, to urge on him that the Minister should use his discretion, which he had under the original Bill, to take in the Clones area as an undeveloped area and help the people there to get an industry to offset the circumstances created there by the proximity of that town to the Border. That is now unnecessary because, under this Bill, it will be possible for them to get a grant.

It was possible under the Industrial Grants Act.

Under the Undeveloped Areas Act, they could get a grant for a factory. There was no grant for machinery. Under this, they will get a grant of——

Two-thirds for a factory and one-third for the machinery.

Plus some contribution to the cost of electrical installation and power. That suits the people in Monaghan and other counties. But, wisely or unwisely, I still feel a solicitude for the people who live in the Gaeltacht, in the undeveloped areas of the west and south-west of Ireland. I do not think I am a sentimentalist, but it gives me a horribly uncomfortable feeling to remember that these people were undoubtedly persuaded, partly by the terms of this Bill and partly by talk on the part of Fianna Fáil, that Fianna Fáil were sincerely concerned for them, and were their friends. The result was that in the recent Presidential election and in the referendum you had a situation in which Galway, Donegal, Kerry, parts of Mayo and Clare came out and voted solidly in favour of the advice tendered them by Fianna Fáil Deputies. Is that not true?

Yes, thank God.

And, within a fortnight of that, they can persue this Bill. Deputy Bartley says that he cannot believe that the Bill says what it explicitly says.

The Parliamentary Secretary.

The Parliamentary Secretary cannot believe that the Bill means that the inducement to set up industries in these very areas will be materially diminished by the provisions of this Bill.

I said I did not accept the interpretations of other Deputies.

But is that not what the Parliamentary Secretary finds hard to believe?

I do not accept other people's interpretations.

The Parliamentary Secretary finds it hard to believe that the inducement to set up industries in the undeveloped areas is being materially diminished by this Bill.

If the Deputy reads my speech, he will find he cannot draw that conclusion.

The Parliamentary Secretary is now being so delphic that I cannot understand him. Indeed, I doubt if he understands himself. The fact remains that the Taoiseach is not at all as ambiguous as the Parliamentary Secretary now appears to be. He made no bones about saying that the inducement to establish industrial plant in the undeveloped areas is materially diminished by the provisions of this Bill. That is the function of the Bill. The Taoiseach takes the view that, having had seven years' experience of the operation of the original Act, we must now face the fact that it is better to encourage the establishment of industrial enterprise outside the undeveloped areas, if that enterprise is prepared to engage primarily in export. The intention is to allow people who want work to leave the undeveloped areas and get that work wherever the industrial enterpreneur sets up the factory.

I should like to know what is the policy of the present Government. It is not so long ago since the Taoiseach, speaking here as Minister for Industry and Commerce, stated the Government's policy to be one of the dispersal of industry. I understood everyone in the House to agree with the proposition that it was desirable in so far as one could, short of actual compulsion, to provide every kind of inducement to prospective industrial enterprise to choose a rural setting rather than add itself to already existing industrial conglomerations. Has that policy been dropped? If it has been dropped, we ought to face that fact with our eyes wide open.

Within the last week, I was in a country parish, the centre of which is a country town. I was told by the parish clergy that they took a census five years ago. They repeated the census within the last few months, and from that single parish, 400 souls have gone; that is to say, there are 400 fewer people in the parish to-day than there were five years ago. I have frequently said in this House that we are face to face with a world-wide trend. We are face to face in our own country with the migration of the rural population into the cities and towns. Owing to our peculiar geographical situation and our special relation with Great Britain, the great volume of that migration from the countryside goes to British cities and a relatively small part of it to Irish cities.

Is it our purpose now to expedite that migration from the rural areas into the cities, Irish and British? Mark you, if that is the present policy of the Taoiseach and the Minister for Industry and Commerce, it is a grave decision to take. I think they may unwittingly be setting their feet on a road, the end of which we do not clearly see. I hate recapitulating debates which took place here seven years ago when the original Bill was before the House, but I set out then what I believed to be the right policy in regard to the undeveloped areas, namely, to promote and to assist industries in these areas founded on the natural resources of the areas, natural resources consisting of certain mineral deposits, fish, livestock and certain crops. I think it was Deputy Russell. Deputy Murphy, or somebody on that side—I cannot remember—who spoke of the equation of transport costs, and that was received with a certain derisory reaction from the Fianna Fáil benches.

I want to say to the Minister for Industry and Commerce that, if he still intends to give the underdeveloped areas any industrial stimulant to retain at least some alternative employment in the underdeveloped areas. Now that he has brought in this Bill, which makes it in many ways more attractive for a capitalist entrepreneur to locate his factory outside the underdeveloped areas, he ought seriously to consider the suggestion that was made to him to-day, as a compensation for the diminution of inducements that this Bill will create, to try to bring the status of the underdeveloped areas into something approximating to equality with all those areas close to our principal ports.

For instance, take the bacon industry. That is an industry that can be located in the undeveloped areas, based entirely on home-produced raw material. There is no reason whatever why all the barley, all the skimmed milk and all the pigs necessary to keep all the bacon factories in the West of Ireland working 24 hours a day could not be produced there, and they need not bring in a thing, but you are immediately faced with this problem that, if you make 1 cwt. of bacon out of a pig in Castlebar or Claremorris, they must pay freight on that bale of bacon from Dublin to the North Wall before they can ship it to Great Britain and they are in competition with a factory which is operated either in Waterford, Cork or Dublin, which can put its bale of bacon on the boat without any domestic freight charge at all. Signs on it, if you read the report of the Castlebar bacon factory or any bacon factory situated in the congested areas, you will find that as compared with those situated more advantageously in the immediate vicinity of the ports, the factories in the congested areas are going down and any prosperity that is available is accruing to the advantageously-situated factories in the East. That is something concrete.

I do not deny that I am burdened in this debate with a certain dichotomy of mind. Speaking for my own constituents, this is jam for me but I do not think we all ought to get up and speak in this House only for our own constituents. We have a wider function to discharge and all of us, particularly those of us representative of rural constituents, must have present to our mind the special circumstances of the undeveloped areas. I get a queer satisfaction in defending them, particularly in the light of recent election results. They have put their faith wholly in Fianna Fáil and I think they are being shamelessly betrayed in this Bill, unless the Minister is prepared to give some indication that, side by side with this legislation, he is prepared to take some effective measures to give back to the Gaeltacht what he is taking from them under this measure.

The general feeling of the people in West Donegal, West Mayo, West Galway, West Kerry, and West Clare is that they want to stay in their own part of the world and find employment there, if that is possible. If they do not stay there, they will go to England or America and they will find it just as easy to migrate from any of these parts of Ireland to Birmingham, Manchester or London as they will to migrate to Wexford, Waterford, Dublin, Dundalk or Drogheda. What they want is employment at home and I think it is a good thing to provide it there.

I remember being profoundly shocked when I first became Minister for Agriculture to discover that the boatyard at Fanny's Bay had been casually closed down in one of the most inaccessible parts of West Donegal, where there was no possibility of finding alternative employment for the people in that area. I remember going out to Fanny's Bay and seeing the buildings falling down and getting the necessary money provided by the then Minister for Finance to rebuild the place. Go and look at it now. I admit that if it were established in Dublin or, indeed, in Arklow, Waterford or Wexford, it would look relatively insignificant but it gives very precious employment to people in a part of Ireland where there is no possibility of finding any other employment.

I remember the satisfaction I had in promoting the establishment of a meat meal factory in Ballinasloe. I do not blame Deputies if they find it hard to believe that I promoted it, but I did. The board of directors consisted, at the instance of the Industrial Development Authority, of one Fianna Fáil Senator and two Fianna Fáil T.D's. If that had happened in reverse I can well imagine what would have happened. If the Industrial Development Authority, under a Fianna Fáil Government, had been directed by the Minister for Agriculture to promote a meat meal factory and produced a board of directors with one Fine Gael Senator and two Fine Gael T.D's, the roof would have blown off Kildare Street and off the Ministry of Agriculture. Indeed, there were those who came to me and said; "Is it not time that you blew the roof off, if you gave directions for this factory to be established and if that is the board you get?" I said; "I do not mind who is on the board of directors, so long as the job is done".

I do not see how the composition of boards of directors of various industries arises.

I am just confirming the fact that it was I who promoted this industry in the West of Ireland, founded on local raw materials, and I am asking Deputies to believe that, despite the fact that the board is now burdened with, I think, Dr. Ryan, the Minister for Finance—or he was on it—a Fianna Fáil Senator and two other Fianna Fáil T.D's.

Surely they did not get free membership of that board but had to pay for it.

Not a scadán. I think they put up £50 apiece, or something like that. It was done in association with Burnhouse. I informed Burnhouse that I would not export a fallen carcase any longer if they did not manufacture the stuff here and Burnhouse, with the Industrial Development Authority, established the Ballinasloe factory with this extraordinary fringe of directors.

I should like to say that the statement of the Deputy is not correct.

In what respect is it not correct?

In reply to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, the Deputy stated that the directors put up only £50 apiece. That is not correct.

I do not know what they put up. I never inquired. I have not the faintest notion what they put up and it did not interest me in the least. Maybe they own the whole factory. The only direction that I gave was: "I want a factory to be established which will handle this raw material which heretofore has been exported and I want to see meat meal manufactured in Ireland where we will control it because we require it for the livestock industry". After that, I did not give a fiddle-dee-dee who got hold of it. What I was concerned to ensure was that employment would be given in undeveloped areas, producing a useful product from a domestic raw material.

They are under private enterprise. Is that not so?

Entirely private capital.

Burnhouse is a subsidiary of Unilever. I do not care who owns it or who has control of it now. My concern is that the meat would be turned into bone meal.

Then why is the Deputy bringing it up?

Because our policy was to establish such factories in underdeveloped areas from local raw material. I think the policy of the Government now is to depart from that. I think the test that would be applied now under this Bill and under the policy envisaged in this Bill is: "Where is the greatest demand for meat and bone meal? Whence comes the largest supply of raw material? Put their factory there. Let the Ballinasloe people come up and work there and leave their homes in Ballinasloe and change their domicile."

I see in this Bill a complete departure from the whole idea of bringing factories to the people and the adoption of a new policy of bringing the people to the factories. I am trying to supply instances of where we in the Fine Gael Party had a different policy —a policy primarily designed to bring the factories to the people rather than the people to the factories.

I do not think the House appreciates the significance of this Bill. I see the Taoiseach's point of view but I think he is making this mistake. I think he is going to excessive lengths to streamline the whole procedure. He says in effect: "The plain fact is that in the furious international competition to secure the location of international industries in the various countries' respective territories, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland and even Great Britain and Northern Ireland, are all offering powerful inducements to these desirable industrial enterprises to locate in their jurisdictions and the plain fact is that we have to be prepared to match their offers." He takes this means of doing it.

He says: "I shall kill two birds with the one stone. I shall reduce this whole machinery to three bodies—the I.D.A., whose purpose is promotion; An Foras Tionscal, whose purpose hereafter will be the distribution of grants and the Industrial Credit Company, whose primary purpose will be the raising of capital and the underwriting of issues." I think that, in an excessive desire for simplification, he has lost sight of the original purpose of the Undeveloped Areas Act. Its original purpose was to maintain a wide margin between setting up an industry in the undeveloped areas and setting it up outside. I think the Industrial Grants Act maintained that differential.

I would be quite prepared to agree with the Taoiseach if he said he agreed in principle with the Industrial Grants Act but that the world had moved on greatly in the past two years and that he now felt constrained to go beyond what the Industrial Grants Act was prepared to do and to say that, where a desirable export industry with an established marketing equipment was prepared to establish a branch factory anywhere in our jurisdiction, the Government ought to be prepared to make very generous provision for its accommodation. I think he ought to be able to go certainly as far as the Northern Ireland Development Body, under the direction of Lord Chandos, is going at present and that is to say to such an enterprise: "Tell us what kind of factory you want and we shall build it and lease it to you on terms convenient to you so that you will have no capital expenditure at all in respect of your building, the understanding being that you can vacate it at any time and return it to the Government on suitable notice."

I would be quite prepared to agree with the Taoiseach if he said he was prepared to go even farther and say: "If you want to acquire machinery to instal in your factory we are prepared to help you in the financing of it." All that, I would fully understand provided he said: "We have a special social problem in this island. If I make these facilities available I shall provide some additional inducements for those who are prepared to set up their industry in an undeveloped area, the population of which is so rapidly fading away."

I think it is quite possibly true that, even though you did give that supplementary inducement, experience would teach that the establishment of such industries in remote rural areas in Ireland is not a practical proposition if they are to be operated on a strictly commercial basis. I think it is highly likely that the picture that would emerge in the undeveloped areas would constitute industries founded on locally produced raw materials such as bacon factories, lime grinding plant, fish factories, meat meal factories and so on and that the way the Government could help such factories would be to place them, by suitable transport subsidies, in a position that they would be able to market their output without a serious transport handicap abating the margin of profit which the market in which they had to trade would allow. That would be one side of the development.

The other side of the development in those areas would be those industries operated by the Gaeltacht Board. We all know that the industries operated by the Gaeltacht Board are not industries in the accepted meaning of the word but a social service. They would not stay in operation for an hour if they were not approached on that basis. We all know it but we do it.

It will all change now.

That is the kind of poisonous illusion with which Fianna Fáil Deputies, young and old, can bemuse their minds. That is all cod: The Gaeltacht industries are a social service. They will never be anything else. If you ran the Gaeltacht industries on a strictly businesslike economic basis, 90 per cent. of the workers would be knocked out of a job in the morning and their industries would be concentrated in relatively small units. If you introduced mechanised automatic machinery, the employment content would almost finish. It is studied policy, and has been for years, to ensure that that will not happen. These industries are designed to provide very modest remunerative employment for family groups who wish to supplement the exiguous income they can derive from their small holdings by the industry of their hands.

These two resources would provide a good deal of useful blood in the undeveloped areas. I urge on the Minister for Industry and Commerce that this is cynical beyond belief, if he will look back himself at Vol. 123 of our Debates and recall the undertakings then given and the declarations of policy then made to a peculiarly defenceless section of our community. It is cynical beyond belief to tell them they will be thrown out like dirty water and I should like to ask Deputies representing the Gaeltacht—and I see two or three of them in front of me; one from North Mayo or do I see two from North Mayo?—do they believe that that Bill will increase or reduce the existing inducement to establish industries in the undeveloped areas of Ireland?

It is a cynical and a shameless thing to betray the trust of people who believed in the validity of the purposes outlined when the Undeveloped Areas Act was passed. There is something peculiarly shocking in the attempt at concealment—and I want to say this for the Taoiseach, that my recollection is that he boldly and honestly declared last night what he believed would be the consequences of this Bill. I respected him for it but I did not detect the same franchise in the Minister for Industry and Commerce.

The Deputy did not hear me speak yet.

I thought he rather recoiled from assenting to the propositions laid down by the Taoiseach last night. It seems to me cynical that Deputies representative of the Gaeltacht should sit silently under this. I respected poor Deputy Corry when he said: "I have been humiliated, trampled on and betrayed," protesting earnestly as he did in the House. You must have some respect for a man who did that because at least he was true to those whom he had misled by his falsehoods. However, I have very little respect for Deputies who mislead trusting people, and my neighbours in County Mayo are trusting people, as are the constituents of West Donegal, if you win their trust. I do not think I would ever describe the people of West Kerry as trusting people: they are like the people who come from Missouri—they want to be shown.

It is cynical beyond belief that these people are to be sold down the river as I prophesied they would be, without a word of protest from the Deputies representing them. It is peculiarly nauseating to hear the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, Deputy Bartley, professing here that he does not understand the Bill, that if he did understand it, he would oppose it but that misunderstanding it, like Pontius Pilate, he washed his hands and says he is innocent of this betrayal. There is something peculiarly nauseating about the spiritual children of Pontius Pilate.

I have formed the opinion since I heard the Bill introduced last evening, subsequently explained by the Taoiseach and commented upon by a number of Deputies that there is in it a great deal of ambiguity, particularly in Section 2. I find from various sides of the House interpretations given of the Bill which conflict very seriously.

Coming from a city and as a representative of a city with no personal knowledge of the problems in the smaller communities, I should like to say I have no objection—and I am quite sure the people I represent and the people of the same type as I represent in the other Dublin constituencies have no objection—to efforts being made by this Government or any other Government to ease the problem in depressed areas.

The term used in this Bill and in the previous Bill, "undeveloped area", while it may accurately describe land as being poor and the opportunities for employment as not being numerous, need not necessarily describe the area as being an area in which there is large-scale unemployment. But the type of area with which I am concerned is an area where there is large-scale unemployment, an area which people are compelled to leave, not because there is a lack of amenities or because it has not been developed, but as a result of the bitter economic experience of having no employment, fathers having no employment to maintain their families and youths and girls growing up to see little hope of employment in the future.

I should like to submit for the consideration of the House that the term "depressed area" can quite well be applied to the city of Dublin. I do not think it is at all necessary to mention that in this depressed area, the city of Dublin, only a relatively small proportion of the population are native Dubliners; most of them come from many other parts of the country.

The original Bill of 1952 and the amending Bill of 1957 were introduced for the purpose of providing some employment or development in certain parts of the country. As far as I can see, they are not being repealed to any extent by the Bill before the House but what is being repealed completely is the Industrial Grants Act, 1956. It could possibly have been amended—I am quite sure it could have been amended—in so far as the limits of the grants of the Act might prove inadequate and because the Act did not extend the type of assistance wide enough, but it included grants "to provide employment on a substantial scale, to make available in the State substantial quantities of the commodity, or to provide an opportunity for developing an export trade".

That Act which contains that general clause is being repealed. Here we have a Bill—I think the Minister indicated in his opening speech there would possibly be a change of title— which may very well impose added restrictions or make it difficult for those industrialists who are desirous of setting up or developing industries in areas outside the undeveloped areas.

Section 2 of the Bill, from my reading of it, would impose very clear limitations and restrictions on those who may be desirous of setting up or developing industries in places other than the undeveloped areas. There has been a change because under that section we read in regard to grants for undertakings not in undeveloped areas:—

(1) Whenever the Board—

(a) are of opinion that there are sound reasons why an industrial undertaking cannot be established or developed in the undeveloped areas...

In other words, an applicant for a grant would immediately have to prove that it cannot be established in an undeveloped area before he could even get his case for a grant in another area considered. It goes on:—

"and that the undertaking is, having regard to its size, character or the probable extent to which its products are likely to be exported, of exceptional national importance."

I do not see in that general description any reference to a clause which existed in the Industrial Grants Act, 1956, and that was "to provide employment on a substantial scale." Possibly, the Minister may not think that is of any serious importance in the areas outside the undeveloped areas.

The Taoiseach indicated in his contribution yesterday evening that, in his opinion, the probable effect of the present legislation would be to encourage the setting up or developing of industries in areas where there were services, power, labour, etc., available, as against places where the services and other facilities were not readily available.

While the Taoiseach gives as his opinion that this would be the possible effect arising from many factors, including industrial development both here and in adjacent countries, nevertheless, the Bill still contains in that subsection very serious qualifications. I would put it very briefly to the Minister that whatever was the case for endeavouring to set up industries in the undeveloped areas, one of the most important problems facing the country at the moment is to have industrial development here, either as the result of the setting up of new industries or the extension of existing industries, as rapidly as possible for the purpose of bringing into employment idle workers.

I think the Minister, in answer to a question, indicated that the effect of the Undeveloped Areas Act, 1952, from the point of view of employment, was to employ between 4,500 and 5,000 workers as a result of industries being set up under that Act. I should be interested to know, when the Minister is replying to the Second Stage debate, what was the proportion employed between male and female labour and adult and juvenile labour.

I am aware that there are areas in this country where factories are situated giving employment and where the girls are collected by bus as far away as 20 or 30 miles from the place where the factory is located, but I am also aware that in the city of Dublin there is very serious unemployment. There are in what might be almost termed the new towns on the perimeter of the city sites, power and in particular labour available that should not be left out of account when the Dáil is debating a Bill of this nature.

The sections of the Bill which increase the maximum amount which may be granted and the sections which extend the industrial grants to include grants for the purchase of equipment are sections with which nobody will quarrel. The main point which causes me uneasiness is Section 2 which could prejudice very severely the possibility of firms or individuals obtaining grants for industries outside the undeveloped areas. In approaching this problem we should endeavour to forget for a moment the areas we come from, as areas. I am not concerned whether a factory is put on a piece of rock in Connemara, or on good grassland in Meath, or on some of the mud around Dublin, the reclaimed land, provided the factory, initially, will help to deal with the problem of workers who are unemployed.

What Deputy Dillon said is true— that we have had this development of a drift from the rural areas to the smaller towns and the cities, and across to the industrial cities in England, over many years and there are many causes for that. One of the major causes, certainly, for the drift of Irish men and women is lack of employment. In recent years in the city of Dublin we saw a phenomenon missing for many years. Instead of Dublin's population growing steadily because of a drift of people into the city, although the population was still growing to some extent, there was clearly showing a drift of people out from it. I do not think that it is always unemployment or economic conditions which induce people to leave the rural areas, but because of the drift, as there was no work to hold them in their homeland, they drifted to a neighbouring country. I just wanted to make that point because I think it is necessary that whatever clauses this Bill contains which might cause misunderstanding or lead to misinterpretation, should be clarified.

I do not know whether there is any truth in the suggestion made by Deputy Dillon that the Government are now changing a policy which existed for some years but I do know it would be very hard to convince anyone reading Section 2 of the Bill that the policy was not exactly the reverse of that submitted by Deputy Dillon. I do not think that the situation, as I read this Bill, is that described by Deputy Dillon. I think that, unless there is some agreed amendment to that section, only those with very powerful economic or political influence will be able to set up industries outside the undeveloped areas. To a great extent it might well be the position that only in cases where groups, companies or individuals come along and say to the Board "We are anxious to set up an industry in a particular place and if we do not get permission we shall withdraw," that permission would be granted.

From my reading of that section I think there will be very little encouragement to existing industrialists to develop because they would have to approach the Board, not on the basis of making a case for a grant for a particular industry, but they would first of all have to convince the Board, or endeavour to convince them, that the industry could not be established in some undeveloped area. That is a serious error in this Bill and it would be a serious error in policy if at this time, when the country needs the development of industries—not in five, ten or fifteen years, but in the shortest possible time—delays, obstructions or frustrations could arise for those who are willing to make their contribution.

In saying that I am quite well aware of the fact that in this country nobody sets up an industry unless he is satisfied he will make a substantial profit from the undertaking. But, still realising that fact, and still granting the desirability of industrial development taking place with the assistance of the Government, I believe it is important that we should not create the difficulties that this Bill creates. If we have reached a stage where it is not possible to have industries established in the underdeveloped areas without the encouragement that will exist under this Bill, with the encouragement given under the 1952 Undeveloped Areas Act as amended, it would be wise, in the interests of the people as a whole, to give encouragement to the setting up of industries somewhere else in Ireland.

I should like to repeat the point I made earlier that industry is primarily needed in centres where there is serious unemployment. Connemara is a lovely countryside. From the point of view of its scenic beauty it far surpasases any area within the City of Dublin but it must be remembered that there are thousands of Dublin families whose breadwinners are seeking employment and some attempt will have to be made to encourage, to a greater extent, the development of industries in Dublin or we shall have repeated in this city what has been happening through many generations in rural areas.

Deputies from rural constituencies are inclined to think that Dublin is just an industrial city. As compared with many cities of comparative size, in almost any country in Europe, Dublin is very little industrialised. The extent of industrialisation here is too small. The population may be big but there are many people whose employment is in offices, shops, transport and distribution and, if you examine the extent of industrial employment in the city as compared with its population, Dublin is not, and has not been, an industrial city. There are areas in it which are crying out for the early establishment of industries, and I believe it would be well if factories were actually built in some of these areas for industrialists who would take advantage of the fact that the buildings, the power, and the necessary labour force were available.

Many of the citizens of Dublin a few years ago were citizens of Mayo, Galway or Kerry, and we cannot say to them: "Go back to your own counties." Nobody would want to say that to them. They are Irish men and women and many of them are housed in homes which have been provided with the aid of great assistance from State and local authorities. They need employment if they are to maintain their families and remain in their homes and, to my mind, it is more important to try and establish industrial undertakings within a short time in an area like Ballyfermot, which is almost a town in itself, than to set up an industrial establishment 10 miles from the Atlantic Ocean and transport workers to it from a distance of 15 or 20 miles.

Nonsense.

In conclusion, whatever new title the Minister may give the Bill I would ask him to forget, for the moment, the undeveloped areas and, in the encouragement of private enterprise to set up and expand industries. I should like him to think more in terms of depressed areas and, by depressed, I mean areas where there is substantial unemployment at the present time.

Listening to Deputy Larkin's remarks on this Bill, it struck me very forcibly that the Labour Minister for Industry and Commerce in the previous Government, Deputy Norton, deliberately, by Ministerial direction, instructed An Foras Tionscal, or rather the Industrial Development Authority, not to apply the provisions of the Industrial Grants Act to Dublin City. I think that Deputy Larkin's plea to the present Minister might have sounded a little more real, and a little more earnest, if we did not have that knowledge of the action of his own Labour Minister for Industry and Commerce. Deputy Larkin's remarks would seem to indicate that this was an isolated piece of legislation. He completely ignored the fact that this is only one of many pieces of legislation designed to procure and encourage industrial expansion.

In his plea for Dublin City which I, being a Deputy for Dublin, wholeheartedly endorse, he ignored the fact that the present Government has passed various pieces of legislation designed to encourage industrial expansion generally throughout the country. I refer to the considerably increased resources placed at the disposal of the Industrial Credit Company for that purpose, and the considerably increased facilities made available to foreign firms to come in here and start industries, facilities which were made available in the Encouragement of External Investment Act. There are also the tax incentives that have been devised to encourage industrial expansion as a whole throughout the country.

I think it is unfair for Deputy Larkin to suggest that the Government are unmindful of Dublin city and indeed of urban areas generally by endeavouring to say that this piece of legislation ignores them and does not cater for them, or caters for somebody else to their disadvantage. In fact, the opposite is true because, under this Bill, the position in which the provisions are not applicable to Dublin city is changed and the situation whereby the Industrial Grants Act did not apply to Dublin city or Cork will not prevail in the future and to that extent Dublin city, as such, gains under this Bill. In fact I hope to show that the whole country gains under the provisions of this Bill.

In discussing the Bill, it is important that we should not make the mistake of thinking there are only two possible alternatives: (1) that the industry goes to the undeveloped areas, or (2) that it goes to the remainder of the country. I think a lot of the talk here has been based on that assumption. It would not be unfair to say that all Deputy Dillon's speech was based on the premise that there are only these two alternatives, and that this Bill was coming down heavily on one side or the other. There is, of course, a third possibility and it is with the third possibility that this Bill is primarily concerned. The third possibility is that the industry would not be started at all or if it were, that it would be started in the Six Counties or in Great Britain or on the Continent of Europe. It is with that possibility that a discussion on the Bill should be primarily concerned because it is to that kind of project that the provisions of the Bill will primarily apply.

The concept of giving outright grants from State funds to encourage industrial development began in 1952 with the Undeveloped Areas Act. It was extended somewhat hurriedly in 1956 by the introduction of the Industrial Grants Acts and now in the light of all that has happened since, our experience in the operation of these two Acts and developments in the world outside and the economy generally, we are reviewing the whole situation. In that connection I think that since 1952 there have been two major happenings which bear upon the situation and which we must take into account.

The first of those is the coming into being of the Common Market of the Six in Europe and the second, the fact that this idea of the State, by financial assistance, actively encouraging industrial promotion has gained ground and has been developed in all the countries of Europe and from our point of view, what is most important, in Britain and the Six Counties. The coming into being of the Common Market has had this important effect. Before it happened, there was a very distinct possibility that we could go to American industrialists and say to them: "Come to Ireland. Set up your industries in Ireland and you will have a springboard for the whole Continent of Europe. You will be able to export under Imperial preference into Britain and at the same time the entire Continent of Europe will be available as a market to you." That situation no longer applies. The coming into existence of the Common Market has changed that situation entirely and indeed there is a considerable amount of writing and talking by foreign investors in America on this question. The whole emphasis of their thinking and planning now is on setting up their factories and plants in one of the Common Market countries and so having a foothold actually inside this huge market itself.

The other factor to which I referred is a very real one also. The whole theory of the Government coming to the aid of particular areas and by financial assistance, encouraging industrial development in those areas has gained ground in Britain and the Six Counties and in the countries of Europe generally. That affects the situation here considerably. We are not just one country endeavouring to attract industrialists to our shores; we are now more and more in a keenly competitive situation where other communities are alive to the desirability of attracting foreign participation and are actively going out to secure it.

You bet they are.

As I see it, this Bill is primarily concerned with the effects of that situation as I have outlined it. The Bill's main objective is to develop and promote conditions here where industries will be set up which would not otherwise come to this country or would not be set up at all, if they were in contemplation by nationals.

Let us examine the position as it obtained up to now. We had two separate mechanisms. We had the mechanism operating under the Undeveloped Areas Act, 1952 which was designed solely and exclusively to attract industries to the western sea-board—to the undeveloped areas, industries that would not otherwise go there. The whole basis of the Act and the whole principle of its operation was that by actual financial encouragement to potential manufacturers, we attracted them to areas which would otherwise be unattractive to them. The principle of a differential is enshrined in that mechanism.

In the second and completely different case, we have the mechanism of the Industrial Grants Act, the provisions of which apply to the remainder of the country. Despite the incorrect title, which will be changed, this Bill is almost exclusively concerned with that second mechanism, the mechanism formerly operated under the Industrial Grants Act. It seems to me that it is a perfectly logical development.

Might I ask the Deputy did he say the title is going to be changed?

Yes, to the Industrial Grants (Amendment) Act—because the Bill is concerned with the provisions formerly operated under the Industrial Grants Act and not so much with the Undeveloped Areas Act.

It seems to be a perfectly logical and sensible development. The Industrial Grants Act has not worked out very well and has not been very effective. This Bill is concerned principally to improve its provisions. The type of situation being dealt with is the attracting of industries for the sake of employment to the remainder of the country, apart from the undeveloped areas. The Bill sets out to do that and succeeds in doing so without interfering in any way with the provisions of the Undeveloped Areas Act, except to the extent of improving them to some degree.

One main factor governing the operations of the Industrial Grants Act which caused difficulty, and which is responsible now for the introduction of this Bill, is that an existing Industrial concern could not get a grant to extend its activities under the old Industrial Grants Act. Under this Bill that disadvantage would go by the board and an existing industrial concern will be entitled to get a grant to extend its activities.

The other principal improvement which is proposed in the present provisions is that plant is now being brought into the scope of the provisions for the first time. Under the Industrial Grants Act one could not get a grant for the provision of plant and machinery. In that way the old Industrial Grants Act was defective. That defect is being remedied in this Bill.

Under the Industrial Grants Act there was a limit on the amount one could get. A manufacturer was entitled only to a maximum grant of £50,000. That was a very serious limitation, in view of the size and scope of a modern industry. That limitation is being removed under these provisions.

From the point of view of the national economy, there is a further improvement in the Bill, in that the emphasis is being laid now on exports. That is in keeping with the general theory of the book "Economic Development" and the policy outlined in the White Paper "A Programme for Economic Expansion." The directive principle is here in this Bill that industrial development should be aligned on the export market. My argument is that this Bill is concerned primarily with the remainder of the country, outside the undeveloped areas, and that the Bill aims at nothing more or less than improving the existing provisions of the Industrial Grants Act, without interfering with the facilities available to encourage industrial development in the West.

The Bill goes further. It does not in any way take from the facilities available for the underdeveloped areas but it adds to them in two very important ways. First of all, this Bill provides that An Foras Tionscal from now on will be able to make a grant for the provision of electric current in the undeveloped areas. That was a deficiency in the 1952 Act. It is being made good.

Especially for the undeveloped areas?

Especially for the undeveloped areas.

And you only thought of it when bringing it in for the rest of the country? The Deputy must think they are very naive in the undeveloped areas.

I do not understand that interjection at all.

I shall elaborate it.

It is quite clear that the working of the Undeveloped Areas Act showed up this deficiency. One of the problems of the undeveloped areas and of attracting industry to those areas, was that several places in the area would be remote from electric current. The workings of the Act showed up that deficiency. Provision is made in this Bill to remedy that deficiency and to enable An Foras Tionscal from now on, when a situation like that arises, to give a grant towards the cost of the extension of E.S.B. current wherever an industry is about to be set up.

There are two advantages for the undeveloped areas arising out of this Bill which were not there before. That is one of them—grants for the provision of electric current in remote areas—the second is this. We are assured that, under this Bill, a type of industry which would not qualify before under the Undeveloped Areas Act can now be set up in the undeveloped areas and can get a grant by virtue of the provisions of this Bill. The sort of industry in question is one which up to now was not regarded as being under any competitive disadvantage in being set up in the West. By virtue of the fact that it was regarded as not being under any competitive disadvantage in the West, it did not qualify for a grant. Now we are assured that, under this Bill, an industry of that nature will be able to qualify for a grant, in certain circumstances.

While the Bill before us is primarily concerned, as I said, with the remainder of the country and with improving the provisions of the Industrial Grants Act as we know them up to now, in addition it brings about these two very important improvements to operations under the Undeveloped Areas Act as such. Another important improvement brought about is, of course, the fact that the functions formerly operated by the Industrial Development Authority are being transferred now to An Foras Tionscal. That is a very sensible and very logical development, particularly in view of the fact that the Industrial Development Authority, as far as I can see up to now, asked An Foras Tionscal to operate the Industrial Grants section for them and, in fact, it was An Foras Tionscal staff who, in the main, on behalf of the I.D.A., operated the Industrial Grants Act provisions.

I have already dealt with the fact that this Bill will enable grants to be given to industries about to be set up in either Dublin or Cork. The ridiculous barrier which was there before, to the setting up of industries in these cities, will go by the board. Apart from the fact that I represent a Dublin constituency and for that reason alone welcome this innovation, I think that nationally it is a very good thing.

I would like to avail of this opportunity to pay tribute to the people who have operated up to now the provisions of the Undeveloped Areas Act and of the Industrial Grants Act. These people operate in very difficult and sometimes, I am sure, in very trying circumstances. Their work is very important and responsible and calls for a very high degree of judgment and skill on their part. We can compliment them that they have, in so far as the existing provisions enable them to do so, done a good job. I have every confidence that they will continue to do a good job, and a better job, because the facilities available to them under this Bill will be greater than those they had previously. They will be more flexible and have more room for manoeuvre. In that way I am sure they will be able to do an even better job than they have done up to now.

I think they will interpret Section 2 in a sensible way. I would hope that they would keep in mind what the essential nature of these grants is. It is important to realise that the making of a grant in these circumstances is not throwing money away. The money goes to create a national asset which will always be there. It is different from certain other types of social relief work the State engages in. Even if a particular industry were to fail, that does not mean the grant is wasted. The factory will be there for a considerable time to come as a national asset and available to some other industry.

In addition, there is the short-term beneficial effect on the economy that the employment generated by the construction of these factories will give. I would hope that from their knowledge and experience of the operation of the Acts up to now, An Foras Tionscal authorities will operate the provisions of Section 2 in a sensible way and that, in fact, the dangers which have been envisaged here will never arise. The problem was there: How to avoid losing certain industries to this country and, at the same time, How to maintain an attraction for people to go to the undeveloped areas? That problem has been satisfactorily resolved in the provisions of this Bill.

The Bill does not interfere one iota with the facilities available for the undeveloped areas. In fact, it improves them in two very important ways. On the other hand, it improves the facilities available for the setting up of industries in the other parts of the country. The Bill is a very successful attempt to get over a difficulty in so far as it has, in a very sensible and practical way, reconciled what otherwise might have been two opposing interests. I support the Bill and recommend it to the House.

Deputy Haughey was on a very bad wicket and he knows it. Nobody knows it better than Deputy Haughey. His hand—it may be flattering—is to be seen in this legislation; also the hand behind the scenes of the former Tánaiste and now Taoiseach. Two things are quite apparent as a result of the introduction of this measure. First, we have clearly seen at last the contempt the Taoiseach has for the congested or undeveloped areas; and, secondly, we have proof now beyond contradiction of the pathetic failure that has resulted from the American circus acts of the past three years. We had the Briscoe circus act, the Lemass circus act and the Norton circus act— all travelling America. We had a number of smaller fry on the rounds as well. Mark you, it cost quite a penny to keep these people on the big American tour looking for industries for Ireland.

Deputy Haughey pointed out that tax incentives, a certain decontrolling of the Control of Manufactures Act and other important incentives were given to attract these American industrialists in the last two or three years. And we have not seen a project from those gentlemen yet—not a single one. What does this measure mean? It is a panic measure to try at the last moment to persuade some American manufacturer or industrialist to come here at this stage and, for God's sake, to save the situation here.

It is apparent that all this talk about tying our future to the private enterprise system of America has failed miserably. If we want proof of that, we only have to read the first statement of the new Taoiseach in which he said that the State itself would move in and provide the money and incentives and, if necessary, set up the planning groups within the various Departments to initiate proposals for State industrial development in the future. That is the statement made by the new Taoiseach within the past fortnight, although if we read the Programme for Economic Expansion produced some six months ago, we will find in that document that the Fianna Fáil Party maintained that the future development of this country, as far as industry was concerned, depended solely on private enterprise. Two exceptions were made where the State might interfere. One was the fertiliser factory. Does that not show there is no long-term plan for industrial development under the Government? They have not so far decided what they want as far as the country is concerned.

Deputy Haughey rather pathetically suggested that this would not interfere with the undeveloped areas and that it was wrong to suggest there were only two alternatives now: that you either had the industry placed outside the undeveloped areas or else there was pull to get it into the undeveloped areas. He said there was a third alternative, which this measure sought to achieve. That, according to Deputy Haughey, was to ensure that an industry from abroad will be placed in some part of the country. Anxious though everybody is to have industrial development here, is it not quite logical that if an industry is to come from abroad, the very terms of this measure will react against the undeveloped areas as far as the chances of securing the industry are concerned? Surely there is no Deputy from the congested areas, never mind the Gaeltacht areas, who believes in his heart that this measure will not affect the congested areas in an adverse way?

If, in the case of an industrialist —let us call him Mr. X—there is an opportunity of getting a grant of up to two-thirds of the cost of the erection of a factory, one-third of the cost of the machinery, and a substantial grant for the capital cost of his electricity, and if all these facilities are made available in the city of Dublin and the city of Cork or Limerick, surely he will go to one of those cities in preference to any prominent or good town, west of the river Shannon.

Let us not mix up the Gaeltacht with the congested areas. There are many towns in the west of Ireland which are not in the Gaeltacht, in which there are large pockets of unemployment, and these large pockets are doomed to continued unemployment as a result of this measure. Perhaps under this Government they were doomed to unemployment anyway, but whatever hope they had of getting employment through the setting up of an industry under the Undeveloped Areas Act has now disappeared, or will disappear, when this Bill becomes law.

Everything militates against the undeveloped areas, transport, distance and cost, and it is only human nature for anyone who wishes to set up a factory, or an industry, to pick a place nearest to the greatest population centre where costs are lowest, so far as transport and other charges are concerned. Therefore, in this matter the Government have shelved their responsibilities towards these areas which should be a first charge upon their consideration. It is rather tragic in the sense that the Minister for Industry and Commerce presided here at the birth of the Undeveloped Areas Act. As Parliamentary Secretary, he was charged with the responsibility of carrying out development work in the undeveloped are as a result of that Act. Nobody, I presume, had a better knowledge of the Act than he. He is now Minister for Industry and Commerce and, after seven years, we find that he is presiding at the closing down of the Undeveloped Areas Act, so far as these areas are concerned.

The main thing that emerges from this Bill, as I said, is that the steps which were taken since 1952, the incentives which were offered abroad, all the efforts by various well-meaning people to persuade foreign industrialists—particularly American industrialists—to come here, have failed. This last-minute attempt is, in my opinion —and I am now putting it on the records of the House—doomed to failure, so far as America is concerned.

We had references to the six countries entering into a common trade agreement with regard to interchange of markets between them. We are told by Deputy Haughey that the American industrialists are anxious to use centres in this country as a springboard for the European market. He knows, and every other Deputy knows, that already for the past six years the Americans have taken over various centres in Denmark, Holland and Belgium. Those countries have plenty of American capital at the moment, and they have huge American industrial bases which have been giving first-class employment for the past five or six years. That has already been achieved and, at this stage, we are still talking when we are five years behind the times. It is tragic to think that the people can still be misled into thinking that there is hope of getting American industrialists to come in here.

I am convinced the Taoiseach realises that himself but, naturally enough, he has to make this last-minute attempt which means that he can send Deputy Briscoe or Deputy Haughey or some other client to America next week to say: "Look here; we can now give a grant of £250,000 if you are willing to come over and give us the benefit of your experience in starting an industry in Ireland." That, simply, is what this Bill means. It is set out in precise terms that if anyone from America can be bluffed into coming here, £250,000 will be sanctioned by this House in the form of a grant to any single individual if he comes here and sets up house. We have been taking off our hats to people outside this country for long enough and we have no time or regard for the brains, experience and skill of our own people. That type of incentive is not available to Irishmen but must be kept for the foreigner.

I did not for one moment suggest that the Undeveloped Areas Act, as such, would be the be-all and the end-all so far as the West of Ireland, Kerry, Clare and Donegal are concerned. Like some other Deputies, I went on record here seven years ago—and there is no harm in doing so again—as saying that, although I welcomed the measure as an attempt on the part of the Government to remedy the very serious situation in the west of Ireland, I felt it was wrong to give grants to private enterprise out of public funds, at the expense of the general taxpayer, and to hand these moneys over to an individual without afterwards exercising some control over their spending.

That is what the Act meant in 1952 and we saw the results in the many alleged factories set up in the undeveloped areas. Instead of concentrating on the processing of foodstuffs, and on utilising the raw materials which were available within the country for industrial processing purposes, we allowed these people to get facilities to import the raw materials, bring them across Ireland to where a factory was set up to process them and then, to add insult to injury, they came to Dublin and demanded that tariffs be imposed on the goods coming in so that the articles manufactured in the west of Ireland could be spread all over Ireland at outrageous prices. Articles are being made today in the west of Ireland, in factories which were set up under the Undeveloped Areas Act, which could be purchased abroad at one-third the price and would be much better commodities, and the excuse is the employment given in the west of Ireland.

In many instances, that employment is slave labour; in many instances, that employment is given to young girls; but it is very seldom given to the bread-winners to whom Deputy Larkin referred. Those facilities were all given to those gentlemen, and any private speculator who set up a factory with a little bit of knowledge and a little bit of pull, became a benefactor in the locality. All sorts of people went down when the factory was opened and clapped that gentleman on the back for the great work he was doing for the community. We had other projects that started, projects that got substantial grants and then closed down. We do not know what happened to the grants. They represented money raised through taxation. That money was handed over to these individuals without any safeguards being asked for.

What are we doing in this new measure? We are extending that privilege all over the country. Embodied in the Bill is a provision which lays it down that the Board may make a grant whenever the Board:—

"are satisfied that financial assistance by way of grant is necessary to ensure the establishment or development of the undertaking and that the undertaking will be of a reasonably permanent nature and will be carried on..."

Two things can happen under this Bill. First, the Board will become so anxious not to make a mistake that they will do nothing and no grants will be given, unless the project is a dead certainty. Secondly, they may waste the taxpayers' money. Either way, I am completely against the idea of handing money belonging to the people over to private enterprise, unless some proper control is exercised.

A far better proposition would be for the State to take shares in the enterprise and exercise control. The State would then be in a position to take over the enterprise if it were not run properly. Of course, that smacks, especially to some people in this House at the moment, of Socialism. When it is understood by the public that their interests are being safeguarded, I doubt if there will be any great objection to the State exercising control in order to ensure that no racketeer can walk away with the money or do anything which might endanger the success of the project.

There is another aspect of this matter, an aspect to which I understand the Taoiseach is coming round now, namely, that the State will have to do here what is being done in the Six Counties. It will have to build the factories, equip them and put them out to tender to private enterprise. Control will then lie in the hands of the State. Will Deputies suggest that is wrong? We cannot have it both ways. The idea all along has been that the grants are there if the people want to avail of them. If the people do not want to start factories, it is not the responsibility of the State to step in and start them for them. That policy has been held by successive Governments. Governments have been prepared to make grants available to the people in the town of Roscommon to start industries and, having made the grants available, they have said it is the responsibility of the people to go ahead. No industries have started in Roscommon or in any of the other towns in which industries are badly needed. Emigration still continues. Are the Government to continue shelving their responsibility with regard to emigration? Are they to saddle the people in the different towns with responsibility for stopping emigration? Whose is the responsibility?

The people in the towns, with money possibly invested in Government securities or outside the State altogether, are at a disadvantage. Surely the State does not contend that these people have the know-how to start the industries. They have not got the technical knowledge; they have not got the experience. In a many instances, they have not got a clue. The responsibility cannot be laid at their door. The responsibility for setting up industries of a proper type lies at the door of the Government.

I had hoped that, instead of starting new industries, the Government would get down seriously to a planned programme of expansion in the west of Ireland, a programme based on tourism, afforestation and fishing. These are the ways in which conditions can be improved. These are the ways in which to increase the natural wealth of the community. Instead of that, we have had a concentration on doles, allowances and tin-pot factories. The result is that in the Gaeltacht and in the congested areas, but particularly in the Gaeltacht, there is today complete demoralisation. There are people in the Gaeltacht today who are not prepared to put one foot past the other, unless they get a grant for doing it. At a meeting in West Galway on one occasion, I spoke about the benefits of afforestation. After the meeting a man asked me: "What are you worrying about afforestation for? Why do you not tell them you will increase the dole and the other allowances they get for being idle?" That is the mentality that prevails today. The people are depressed.

Apart from all that, perhaps the greatest tragedy is that these people in these areas are getting a big income from their sons and daughters in Britain and America. They are rearing children for export. They have it both ways. They have the income from their children—allowances sent home regularly—and they have a Government prepared to pay them for being idle for the best part of the year. There has been talk about small Gaeltacht industries. I do not believe there is any use in depending on the areas themselves for support. The Government will have to put into operation a specific plan, a plan which may possibly meet with strong local opposition and strong opposition from Deputies.

The kind of interference I should like to see now on the part of the State is interference in the forestry end of our national economy and the by-products of forestry, in a properly organised fishery policy and not just the messing about we have at the moment, and a greater concentration on tourism. A certain amount is being done in regard to tourism, but the time is running out in relation to fishing and afforestation. There is a very big problem to be solved in East Galway, Roscommon, parts of Mayo and Sligo. I do not suggest these should be treated in the same way as the Gaeltacht areas. They should be in a different category. The danger, with this new Bill, is that they will become "No Man's Land." The Gaeltacht areas will be as they are, but there will be very little for the congested areas proper. The Land Commission can no longer be looked upon, especially with the mentality that pervades it today, as capable of solving the problem of congestion in many areas in the West.

What is going to happen now? What alternative have the people in areas, outside the Gaeltacht areas, in Roscommon, Galway and Mayo, who in many instances have to close their houses and move out of the small holding? Is that trend to be allowed to continue so that the problem may be solved in a quiet way and the Government saved embarrassment or will we get action from the Government on the lines that the new Taoiseach has more or less promised in his first official statement since he became Taoiseach, namely, that the State realises its responsibility, that the plan to tie ourselves to private enterprise has been shelved and that the line to be taken by the new Government is that to a great extent we must raise the money and get the projects going ourselves and, above all, get projects that are based on raw material available within the country?

I cannot understand why it is that so little encouragement is given to the development of by-products of agriculture. I cannot understand why, over the years, every effort has been made to start a bicycle factory, a lock factory, or some other kind of factory, the raw material for which must be imported, while no effort has been made to extend the scope of a company like the Sugar Company to the processing of commodities other than beet, such as vegetables, fruit, and so forth. That should be done and could be done and would give a first-class living and keep more people in rural areas adjacent to the factories. There is no talk of that at all.

In spite of all the good work that the Taoiseach did, as Minister for Industry and Commerce, in his day, in the industrial revolution, I must confess that I feel that he has been all the time on the wrong track. Possibly, that is due to the fact that he is a city man. It is probably not his fault. From a city man's point of view, he undoubtedly did a great day's work but the trouble for many years has been that the people who are in control in this country, the people at the top in the Civil Service and in the Government, look at Ireland's problems through Dublin's eyes. For years we have failed to see the untapped wealth that lies in our land. We have failed to exploit it in a controlled manner, not leaving it to private enterprise, but the State doing it in the interests of the community as a whole. We have failed to realise the wealth that lies in the fish around our shores. We have failed to take the steps in regard to the fishing industry that every other country where the fishing industry is successful has taken, that is, to nationalise the industry.

Perhaps the new Taoiseach, with the dead weight gone from his shoulders and the shadow taken from behind him, may, even at this late stage, change his heart or his tactics. I do not know which is the correct term to use. I feel very cynical at the moment. I am inclined to take his record of the last 20 years into consideration. Regarded from his point of view, he did a good day's work but I must ask is he the man or is he in a position, at this stage, to reverse engines and to start off on the fundamental things—agriculture, fishing and forestry—and to give priority to these industries, and will he get the help, and has he the ability within his Party, to do that? I do not believe he has. Neither do I believe that those problems would be tackled by the people who were in the last Government. It may be very unpopular to say that but I insist on saying it. I believe that within the next two or three years there will be more of the breakdown in discipline that was shown here yesterday and today on the part of Fianna Fáil. We had Deputy Boland here, yesterday——

That may not be debated on the Undeveloped Areas Bill.

It is worth while mentioning.

I mention it in this way. To-day Deputy Bartley gave his views on this Bill and his views were completely different from those of his leader. It is very rarely that we get an expression of views in this House from back-benchers contrary to what the Party decides. There is one exception in the Party, who is here on my right at the moment. He has always insisted on making his views known in this House, whether the Party to which he belongs liked or disliked it. The fact that the ice is beginning to melt in that regard is significant and we must have a little patience to see if the people on the other side of the House who think alike will be allowed to get together and break down the unnatural barrier that has existed here so long.

That may be debated on some other occasion. It is not relevant now.

I shall wait for the occasion when you say it will be more appropriate. We must wait to see the implementation of the promise of the Taoiseach in relation to industrial development. That definitely arises on this measure. We have waited a long time. We must, I suppose, wait with patience for another while, to see if this change will take place.

Last night, I listened to Deputy Norton and Deputy Corish and, today, to Deputy Larkin. All three were inclined to believe, or so they said, that this Bill would help the undeveloped areas, that the aim and purpose of the provisions of the Bill were to direct industry towards the undeveloped areas. I cannot see how the Bill will help the undeveloped areas. It is my contention that it will help areas other than the undeveloped areas.

The Undeveloped Areas Act, 1952, held out certain inducements to industrialists and promoters of industrial projects. It attracted them, or induced them, to site their projects in the congested counties of Connaught, Clare, Kerry, Donegal and part of Cork. Under the 1952 Act, grants of up to 100 per cent. of the cost of the factory building and 50 per cent. of the cost of plant and machinery could be made available to industrial projects that were sited in the undeveloped areas. But, under the new Bill, that differential has been removed to a large extent because if a project is now sited in any other part of the country it will qualify, according to this Bill, for a grant of 66-2/3rds per cent. in respect of building and 33? per cent. in respect of plant. Therefore, whatever inducements existed under the 1952 Act to people to go West have now more or less been negatived or are to be negatived.

I do not think many industrialists, if they have to decide between, say, Galway and some centre nearer the city of Dublin, could be induced to go West. They will naturally be attracted to the area with the big centre of population because the differential under the new Bill is not big enough to induce them to go to the West. I find it very difficult to see—I should like to be convinced of it, too—how this Bill will help the undeveloped areas.

We learned last night from the Minister for Industry and Commerce that employment had been created for 5,500 people as a result of the industries that had been set up under the Undeveloped Areas Act. That would not bear out what Deputy McQuillan stated a few moments ago. He said that the former Minister for Industry and Commerce, now the Taoiseach, had nothing but contempt for the undeveloped areas and that the Undeveloped Areas Act was a failure.

I do not think that the provision of employment for a labour force of 5,500 persons in the counties I have mentioned could be regarded in any way as a failure. I have details of an industry that was set up in my town about five or six years ago. Although it is a textile industry— Deputy McQuillan would quarrel with that—50 or 60 young men have been given very good employment there despite the difficulties textile industries are experiencing at present. There is no such thing as slave labour there. They are getting good pay. Their working conditions are good and the amenities are good.

If more industries of that type could be set up in western counties it would be a great help to the young men and women who leave there and who find great difficulty in getting suitable employment. However, I do not think this Bill will help in any way with the establishment of further industries in the undeveloped areas. Rather, I think it will militate against the establishment of such industries.

One feature I see about this Bill is that apparently the whole country is an undeveloped area. It is time we realised that. It will so be declared when this Bill becomes law. We should all recognise the fact that we have to make up for a lot of leeway.

Some of us believe in private enterprise. Deputy McQuillan believes in a planned economy of the Socialist type. Whatever type of economy we believe in for this country, we must realise there is great room for industrial expansion. We hope this Bill, when enacted, will be a step in the right direction and that it will provide the employment we all want to see.

Deputy McQuillan is rather cynical about American industrialists coming in here. If we do not induce them to come in it is certain they will not come in, anyway. It is right and proper to hold out inducements to them. These inducements are being given in other countries. He referred to the North of Ireland and to the fact that factories are provided for depressed areas there. The factories are built first. They are offered to prospective promoters. The industries then come along. We have a different idea in this country. Perhaps they are right in the North of Ireland. Perhaps we are right here.

We must take some steps to induce people with the technical know how and the capital to set up industries here and to provide the employment so badly needed. For that reason, I welcome this Bill although I have mixed feelings with regard to it because I think it will not help the undeveloped areas. I understand, furthermore, that the Title of the Bill is to be changed.

It was hoped heretofore that the dice was loaded in favour of the Western counties. I trust that the development we saw there since 1952 will not now be stultified. I hope the new inducements held out for the undeveloped areas—the grants for the provision of electrical current in backward areas and the removal of the limitation, which is the only overriding factor I now can see that would weigh in favour of our undeveloped areas—will be satisfactory and will help us in the areas west of the Shannon where emigration is such a problem.

Deputy Larkin said he would like to see more industries set up in Dublin under this Bill. He says that Dublin Corporation and other authorities have to provide housing and employment for people from Cork, Kerry, Galway, Mayo and the other counties. We do not want to see that happen either. We should like to see these people provided with work and housing in their own counties.

Did the Deputy say "boats"?

No. I said "votes." They are getting boats already back there.

We do not want to lose the votes either. We should like them to vote in their own counties rather than in Dublin city where they might vote the other way.

Before dealing with the Bill I want to congratulate the Minister on what is considered to be his promotion to a very important office of the Government. I wish him the very best of luck. For the sake of all of us and for the sake of the country, I hope he will be able to make a great success of his Department.

It was refreshing to see Deputy Carty, one of the western Deputies, come in to discuss this Bill. I have been a member of this House for some years now and I can say that if ever any small question was raised about the West we had the spectable of many Fianna Fáil Deputies from Donegal, Mayo, Galway, Clare and Kerry roaring in this House about the West. They were all absent today. At last, Deputy Carty has broken the ice and he is to be commended for that. I do not commend him for not welcoming the Bill. I welcome the Bill. I do not come from what was classed as an undeveloped area but we had very serious unemployment in my constituency and in West Waterford in the town of Tallow six weeks ago there were no children for First Holy Communion. That shows we have a depressed area there.

This Bill has taken away from the western parts of the country the advantage they had under the 1952 Bill and has made the whole country an undeveloped area for the purposes of promoting industry. At the same time, though that is to the advantage of my constituency, I deplore this desertion of the people in the West of Ireland by the Minister under this Bill. Any promoters of industry who will come in will hardly go to the West of Ireland when they can obtain the same terms in respect of bigger centres of population in the east and can use ports with better facilities.

The Taoiseach came in here with promises. I would not give you two rows of pins for bushels of the Taoiseach's promises because he has been promising things all during his political life and not delivering the goods. As far as his industrial policy was concerned, to me it was a failure. That sounds like heresy when you look at all the industries that were established all round the country. The majority of these industries established were hung around the farmers' necks. When a new industry was opened up, the people on the land had to pay more for what they were buying and, as often as not, they were paying more for the commodity they wanted although it was of poorer quality. Maybe that was because he was the shadow of the Chauvinistic members of his Party.

He went off to a great start. Then it became known that it was the Government's policy not to have any Englishmen promoting factories here. There would have to be more than 50 per cent. of Irish capital in any such industry. We could bring an Englishman here with a well-known product, with the know-how and the knowledge as to how to sell it as well, but he would be told we would not give him control of the industry that would be set up in the name of his product. Other people who knew nothing about the industry would be put on the board, people perhaps pushed into a privileged position. Heaven only knows how many fine industries were turned away from this country in that way.

I have in mind the promotion at one time of an industry in my own constituency. Many people were roaring to high heaven that the Gaels of Ireland knew more about it than anybody else, that we could make the product and it would not be made in any Englishman's name. They opened the industry and closed it and some time afterwards there were some "slickers" in Dublin who opened the industry under the English product's name and it is working like a bee.

There is no question but that the discipline of the Fianna Fáil Party is very strong, in that it is able to get these benches empty today. The discipline that kept western Deputies out of this House today is greater than I thought because up to today I believed they were the most pugnacious Deputies in the House. I was brought down to see conditions in the West several times by people from the West and they were able to tell me about these people. I thought the western people were wonderful, very hardworking, who in order to earn £1 had to do about £5 of work. The strange thing about it is that most of those who were telling me about the West were people born and reared there who had cleared out of it themselves. They were not going to stay on there. It looks as if many of them here today have walked out on the West. Those people in the West are at a great disadvantage now.

Even though I was glad to hear Deputy Bartley speak against the Bill, I was rather shocked to hear a man who had advanced to the position of Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance talking a lot of clap-trap about the industries that should be established in the West. "Surely," he said, "the Minister could see to it that a manufacturing industry would be set up around the fish industry"— Deputy Bartley above all people in the world to make that suggestion! I have visions of this magnificent new fish factory down in Galway with the biggest meadow around it I ever saw. I would not know whether it was a farm or a factory he had established there. It is rather shattering to an ordinary Deputy like myself to hear one of the chosen people among the rulers of the country make a suggestion like that, and then to hear him say that something should be done about developing the cattle industry down there.

The only thing done down there by way of industry was the promotion of a factory in Ballinasloe during Deputy Dillon's term of office. As he mentioned here today, there are some Fianna Fáil Deputies and there has been a Fianna Fáil Minister on the Board, but he did not care about that. The main thing was to establish the factory. That is something the Minister should bear in mind—that it does not matter a great deal who establishes the factory if they are respectable people, people who know their business.

It was very interesting to hear Deputy Haughey, from the patriotic side of the House, speak about the value of imperial preferences in the British market in relation to European free trade. That is something in regard to which the Minister's predecessor seems to have been doing a kind of "Waltzing Matilda" for the past two and a half years, trying to give us the impression that he was very busy doing something. I do not consider all these free trade talks amount to anything or amount to any benefit to us as a nation. We can sum the whole business up by saying to ourselves: "We are in business and we are selling goods. To whom do we sell most of our goods?" The answer will be: "We sell to the British." Could we do anything to tie up the British? We can answer that by saying we can.

That does not seem to arise.

It is very important for the West of Ireland. They sell a lot of their stuff to the British. We should not tie ourselves up with foreign countries. We can go over to the British without any hat in our hands. We are good customers. We should make sure of our markets and trade with Great Britain in the years to come. Then we can see what we can do about the Common Market and people outside. I do not think it is any harm to mention that, since the man who is now Minister for Industry and Commerce will have to be called in. This has to do with industry and the development of industry. The Minister is the man who will be negotiating and I think he will be able to give a better account of himself than his predecessor. While we are fidding around here, the Danes have been in Great Britain twice endeavouring to tie the British up for butter, bacon and those products in respect of which we have a substantial imperial preference as Deputy Haughey says.

The setting up of industrial projects and the question of selling does not arise at this stage.

I am in your hands, Sir. I do not think that the Minister would come in and say he could not do this. In regard to the promotion of industries, we ordinary Deputies come in to see what we can do for our own constituencies. We ask the Minister for Industry and Commerce continually questions in regard to industries that could be promoted in our constituencies as against the city of Dublin. The Minister replies that he can do nothing about it, that it is up to the people themselves. I want to repeat what was said in the House. The Minister for Industry and Commerce is in a position to promote industries. He has already done so in Dundalk only recently and good luck to him.

Let that be there as a precedent. The only thing that can be done to offset the effects of this Bill on the districts in the western area—I put this to the Minister and his officers— is to ensure that whenever an industry offers, it will be put into these areas in the west of Ireland about which everybody here pleads with tears in his eyes that he loves so much. They have not even bothered to come into the House to speak about them this evening.

I am sure that under this Minister we will not have in respect of industries a whole lot of smoke-screens about Shannon and the wonders of Shannon and all these other places. I do not believe in these things at all. If people are going to establish an industry in Ireland, they will establish it, say, in Limerick where the workers are available, or in Ennis. I do not see what advantage it is to establish an industry in the middle of Shannon Airport. The answer that can be given to me is that, of course, it would be a duty-free port. If you wanted to do that for any commodity in respect of which you desire to bring in certain things and then export, it could be done under bond.

I have a suspicion that all that was just clap-trap on the part of the Taoiseach when Minister for Industry and Commerce, just the same as this Bill. It was just a cheap vote-catching Bill. I have been reading the speeches made on the Undeveloped Areas Bill. God help the poor Fianna Fáil Deputies. The whole difficulty in the west of Ireland would be to keep the soot off the rocks with all the factory chimneys which were going to smoke. It was all done because the election results had been so bad in 1951 in Mayo and Galway. It was brought in to try to right the whole business. We should get away from that. We should run the country for our people and not for a Party.

When I got this Bill first, it was with a certain amount of glee that I read it because I was going to have such great advantages because, believe it or not, I had a small idea but I refrained from mentioning it because I might be put in the same category as Deputy Briscoe who was going to bring thousands from America. I have a small idea in my mind but I would be afraid to tell anybody about it because they might spring it off in their own constituencies. I thought about the people who are living amid the rocks of Connemara. I have often protested that there is such a lot of money being sent into it. Perhaps, the whole foundation of my protest lies in the fact that it is only for vote-catching and not for the benefit of the people.

We should be brave enough to ensure that where promotions come before the Industrial Development Authority, they will be sent to the west. We should not establish there enormous industries employing from 500 to 1,000 people. These are the dangerous industries to establish in places like that. If an enormous number of people depend on the industry and it fails, the whole area comes crashing down.

Many small industries have been established in Dublin, industries that employ only from 10 to 15 people. If groups of these industries were established in the vicinity of the various villages in the western areas, they would be much better than putting up a big industry which the place is not able to carry. I sincerely wish the Minister every success. I hope he will make a wonderful success of his Department.

Any measure passed by this House which will succeed in keeping one single person out of the emigrant ship should be welcomed here by everybody. If we view this Bill and other measures in the same light, we will do better. Deputy McQuillan and Deputy Lynch made complaints. Deputy Lynch complained about unemployment in Tallow. I was down in Tallow. I spent two rounds there during the by-elections. I found mills there and very little employment, practically none. But when I went in there subsequently what did I find? I found a new school being built there and the workers on that school come out to the town of Youghal. There was no man from Tallow working on it.

They all cleared out of it.

There was a water supply for the town of Tallow at the same time——

This has nothing to do with the Bill.

I do not know what the Deputy was doing.

What was being done in Tallow does not arise.

When I hear all this talk about industries and employment I wonder what the Deputy was doing. I wonder if some Deputies have any sense of responsibility to the people who sent them here.

I have more responsibility than the Deputy has. I would not come in with that kind of clap-trap.

Do they think they have any responsibility——

He is setting up a smokescreen.

Do they think they have any responsibility to the people who sent them here?

I have plenty of responsibility.

We heard talk here about endeavouring to bring in new industries but those making that endeavour were sneered at. Deputy Briscoe and Deputy Norton were sneered at when they went looking for new industries in America. We wonder what the Deputies who sneered at them were doing.

The Deputies did their stuff.

No man who has been a Deputy for ten years is worth his salt if he did not have a couple of industries established.

Perhaps the Deputy is taking responsibility for Whitegate?

I might take a "skelp" out of Waterford and you would never know what you might see happen.

Deputy Corry should deal with the Bill.

I do not think it is going to help industries to hear them sneered at, to hear sneers about the articles produced in Ireland and the kind of articles they are. I do not think talk of that kind, either from Deputy McQuillan or Deputy Lynch, will help Irish industries.

On a point of order, I wonder if Deputy Corry realises what is under discussion, that it is the Undeveloped Areas Bill?

The Chair has been endeavouring to bring that home to Deputy Corry.

Thank you very much. I hope he realises that now.

Deputy Corry learned what the undeveloped areas meant before he ever had the pleasure of seeing Deputy Palmer here and he will be dealing with undeveloped areas when Deputy Palmer is no longer here. I can assure him of that. I have seen many come and go in my time.

Deputy Corry should get away from these pleasantries and deal with the Bill.

I am dealing with the position of the industries we have, particularly the industries in the undeveloped areas, and the remarks passed by Deputies in this House about those industries and about what is manufactured by them. I think I am entitled to do so. We had a statement made here that from 1952 nobody was employed in the undeveloped areas. Deputy McQuillan said that no employment was given or that whatever employment was given was confined to a couple of girls and that whatever was being produced was two or three times the normal cost and was a bad article. That statement was made by Deputy McQuillan. I think that industrialists that come here to give employment to our people, and our own Irish people who start industries, do not deserve either one or other of those criticisms. I do not think criticism of that type would help in what we all hope to achieve—to find employment for our own people.

A remark was passed here about the State stepping in. I saw the State stepping in where one industry went bankrupt on two occasions, one after the other. When the State stepped in, on the second occasion, 150 people were employed in that industry. Those people were constituents of mine and I came to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, the present Taoiseach, looking for money for the industry and I know the reply I got. He said "Yes, I am giving you money to get the industry going again and I am sending down a Cobh man in charge and if you do not make a success of it you can go to the dickens". He sent down a Cobh man and that industry which as I said, was employing 150 people when it was closed down, is giving employment to 500 people today. It is constant employment and decent employment. That was one occasion where the State stepped in and made a success of it. Let us look at those things squarely. After all, 500 men are employed there who otherwise would be over in England or America or somewhere else, earning their bread. They have a good industry here and they are able not alone to produce for the home market but to export as well. That to my mind is the type of industry which we need here.

I remember the howling and the groaning that went on here in connection with Youghal. What is the position in Youghal today? It is not too far from Tallow about which Deputy Lynch spoke some time ago. You had the chairman of the Youghal Urban Council standing up stating that there was not an unemployed man there to-day. The chairman is ex-Deputy O'Gorman. That is the present position and that is a pretty big change since the time when we had all the moaning about the unemployment in Youghal.

On a point of order, I think the Deputy is out of order because he is really speaking about something that concerns Industry and Commerce and we are dealing with the Undeveloped Areas Bill. He is leading off in a different direction entirely and I hold that he should be ruled out of order.

Deputy Corry on the Undeveloped Areas Bill.

I believe that there should be two other Bills accompanying this one, one being a Bill to make the Industrial Development Authority responsible both to the Government and to this House. I believe that there are too many cells in this country today, and we come up against a stone wall when we look for any information out of them. I have had personal experience of this. There were two industries in my constituency that were looking for grants. They were small industries. One was in the town of Charleville where an Irishman started a very nice industry, exporting certain commodities to Germany. Suddenly he found that the value of his exports dropped from about £50,000 to £10,000. He had the pluck to send his son and business manager over to find out the reason for this. They found out the reason the market was being whipped from them. He applied for a grant and he got none. He applied for a loan and he did not get any and, when I sought to learn the reason, I found that under the power given by this House, the Industrial Development Authority was not obliged to give that information.

There was another industry in the town of Fermoy, an old-established industry run by a very decent patriotic family, a family that were decent enough to hand over a site when another industrialist came in to start operations. They sent over a member of their family to be properly trained in the Scottish mills. He came over here and applied for a grant. He did not get it. He applied for a loan and he did not get that, either. What is wrong? Those are things that do concern me in connection with my constituency, and those are matters which I hope the Minister will be in a position to reply to when he winds up this debate. That is why I am saying another Bill should be introduced in this House to remove the barbed-wire entaglements around the Industrial Development Authority, to make them responsible to somebody, and compel them to reply to somebody. It is about time we got things straightened out a bit.

Another Bill which I should like to see introduced is a Bill prohibiting the establishment of any new industries within a radius of 50 miles of Dublin. I think the radius should be at least 50 miles. We are wondering why industries are not established down the country because you have this octopus created here, comprising every conglomeration of non-nationals. We find that where our people do get to work and put their minds into it, they do succeed in getting industries for their own areas. The Bishop of Cork and the Development Association in West Cork have been working to have an industry established in Skibbereen. Thank God for it.

It is not there yet.

If you keep the squeeze up as I do, you will get it.

We will keep it up.

As a matter of fact, what we require in this country is a new industry every 10 years in practically every town, or an extension of the old ones, if we are to cope in any way with the tide of emigration. If we face the problem in that light, we will succeed. We will not succeed by setting up an authority that will not look at any proposal except those involving heavy expenditure up to half a million pounds. That authority will not look at any scheme which would provide employment for only 25 men who would otherwise have to leave the country. They think such a scheme is not worth while. That is what has been done both in the town of Charleville and in the town of Fermoy.

I know what I am talking about. I have been 32 years chasing industries around the country. Up to the establishment of the Industrial Development Authority, a Deputy could find out what the snag was in connection with any industry from the Department of Industry and Commerce and, knowing what the snag was, could endeavour to remove it. Now he can do nothing because those gentlemen are so swollen with their own importance that they are like the frog in the mill stream.

The Deputy should not criticise officials who are unable to reply for themselves.

I am afraid, Sir, truth is not too palatable here or anywhere else. There is room in this country for at least two or three heavy industries that would give male employment. At one time, Henry Ford used to make tractors in Cork. It gave this advantage that if you broke part of a tractor, you could get a speedy replacement for it. However, the country is now inundated with every type of foreign machinery dumped into it and yet there is room here for a factory to make that machinery.

I want to point out that the Deputy is entirely out of order. He is not referring to the Bill before the House at all. I ask that he should come back to the Bill.

Deputy Corry, on the Undeveloped Areas Bill.

That is one of the industries there is room for, and urgent need for, here. When I was speaking in this House a short time ago, I mentioned the difficulty that would arise, were there an emergency. If an emergency arose, nine-tenths of the agricultural machinery in the country today would be stopping gaps. I had experience of this just recently. A neighbour of mine broke an axle on his mowing machine. It was an English make and it took three weeks to bring an axle from England. There are 35 different makes of tractor in the country at present. Surely to heavens, if one company got a monopoly here, there would be room for the employment of up to 1,000 men making tractors alone, along with other farming machinery?

Is there a combine being made here? There is not, but we have, I think, at least 11 different makes of combine coming into the country. Incidentally, when we talk about the costs and the prices the farmer should get for his produce, there is a tariff on combines. To my mind, those are the industries that should be put into our undeveloped areas to give employment there. Anybody who studies the exports and imports figures, will see the large quantity of farm seeds that are still coming here. Why are they not grown west of the Shannon? The growing and seasoning of them has a high labour content. Those are industries that would undoubtedly suit and fit in here.

I have given my views on this matter as I see it. I should like to hear from the Minister whether there is any hope that Irishmen who establish industries here will be entitled to the benefits of this Bill just as are Americans, Czechoslovaks or anyone else coming in. I have given two instances of Irishmen who could not benefit and I want an explanation in those two cases.

I wish to welcome our new Minister for Industry and Commerce and I wish him every success in his Department.

This Bill seems very good on the face of it, and, like Deputy Corry, I welcome any measure which will help to employ even five or 10 men. From the point of view that a new industry will be given grants to acquire land, to construct or adapt buildings, for other works, for providing services in connection with land, and grants towards the provision of machinery and equipment, it looks well, and we are all pleased to see it, but when we finish at that end, we come to the snags. I think the snags are very big. The principal snag in the case of a person like myself from a district in the east is that anybody setting up an industry in our part of the country must first prove to the Industrial Development Authority that the industry cannot be set up in the west. I think that would be nearly impossible for any person in our part of the country unless the Authority is very open-minded and prepared to accept a very slight proof. Otherwise, it would be very hard for any set of business men in the east to get that benefit.

Secondly, there is the provision that the undertaking must conform to certain standards as regards size and character and the probable extent to which its products are likely to be exported. That is another snag. On the face of it, the Bill looks well, but when you examine it, it seems that people who up to now were denied any chance of getting an industry will now have some chance. Up to this, when anybody thought of starting an industry, they said: "We ought to go to the West because there is a greater inducement. We will get a grant up to two-thirds of the capital cost when we go to the West." Even when I saw this Bill first, I thought it was an opportunity for towns and cities such as my own, Kilkenny, and that they had come into their own at last, but when I read the Bill carefully, I found it was not as easy as it appeared to be on the surface.

As far as I can see, the Bill will create a lot of hope in the hearts of many business people who do not grasp the full implications of it. It will create hopes that they can start industries and get these grants and you will have chamber of commerce after chamber of commerce waiting on the Minister seeking grants under this Bill. Of course, the Minister will point out the snags that are there and these people will just go back home disappointed as has happened often before.

Another snag is that the industry must be carried on efficiently. That means that the only industries that will get a grant under the Bill will be branches of some well-known or long-established industry in another country. That may be all right. I welcome any industry, whether it comes from another country or from at home, provided it gives employment in our own country; but it seems this Bill is intended only for very large industries. That could be stated in a few words and if it were, it would not be raising hopes. If the Government wanted to give grants, all these provisions to which I have stated the objections could be left out of the Bill. If the Government wished, they could give a grant not exceeding two-thirds of the capital if they think the industry has a reasonable change of success, or if the local people put up one-third and a foreign industrialist puts up one-third. As it is, you must go through all this business of going to the Industrial Development Authority, and, like Deputy Corry, I have experience of that body that could meet business men only on a Saturday when it meant that they had to leave their own business to come up and be interviewed. That was quite a number of years ago and I am sure the I.D.A. have changed since then, but we are leaving too much to these people to decide. If the Minister took out some of these snags and tried to encourage some of the smaller industries, he would do better. It is much more important to us to have several small industries started than to wait years to get some large industry.

Deputy Carty made a point I intended to make on this Bill. The Government, as he said, recognises that the whole country is underdeveloped. I and other people from my part of the country have preached that for a long time. The only places where industries have been established to any material extent are Dublin and Cork. Outside those centres, there is no great industry in the country, which is really undeveloped. That is why I say that we should encourage the small industries as well as the large ones. I would welcome a large industry with a capital of £500,000 to £1,000,000. We would all welcome that and we hope three or four of them will start, but I think this Bill should give encouragement to smaller industries employing 40 or 50 or 100 men. There is no encouragement for that type of industry, especially on the eastern side of the country.

The Minister said he intended to change the name of the Bill, but I think he should go further and change the main section of the Bill under which you have to prove that the proposed industry cannot be established in what are at present undeveloped areas and under which only an industry whose products are likely to be exported will qualify. I think that could be changed. I would ask the Minister to look into the matter and on the Committee Stage to bring in amendments to encourage the smaller industries. That is what we want in this country. If there are ten industries employing 50 men each, is that not better than one industry employing 500 men? The work is being divided then and while some industries may meet hard times, the ten will not meet them together and that will break the blow. I would advise the Minister to look into this point.

I welcome the Bill and will be glad to see it coming in. The people in my end of the country are glad to see it, as they will get an opportunity at last to obtain some of the grants which up to now have been reserved for the West. Their pleasure is tempered with the knowledge that it will be very difficult for any of the people in our part of the country and in the eastern parts to get these industries established. I would again suggest to the Minister that he not alone look to the very big industry but to the smaller type of industry and that he should cater for both in this Bill. I feel that if this Bill goes through as it stands, we shall have another in six months, as it will prove practically worthless to the country. The Minister should not wait six months to bring in a new Bill but he should alter the present one now, before letting it go through the House.

I should like to congratulate Deputy Crotty on his very honest speech. I am one of the Deputies from one of the undeveloped areas and naturally I have a certain amount of misgivings about the Bill as it stands. I feel, however, the time has arrived when we must make an honest approach to the whole question of industry and admit quite frankly where we stand. The Undeveloped Areas Act has been in force for the past seven years. During that period a selected part of the country has got substantial preference in capital grants and in Government facilities generally for industry. We have to examine the position of those areas now. Quite a number of industries have been established successfully there, with the assistance available under existing legislation over the past seven years.

On the whole, the experience was reasonably satisfactory. There were a certain number of failures but compared with the total number of projects initiated and brought to fruition, the number which did not succeed is relatively small. Those with experience of finding industries will admit that, on occasions, we have missed some industries because we were prepared to facilitate the promoters only if they set them up in the undeveloped areas. I met promoters who were anxious to start industries but who would not site them in the undeveloped areas. They were able to give a very good reason for such a decision. In two instances I know of, they relinquished the idea of setting up an industry in the country when they were being obliged to do so without the aid of a grant through siting it in an area outside the scheduled areas. I am afraid we missed some major industries through that policy.

I saw a situation arise when sooner or later the Government would have to consider that point. Indeed, when the Bill was announced, it did not come as any surprise to me. I felt that the differential was too great between one part of the country and another. I naturally take the view that those undeveloped areas have a very special claim to a preferential rate of assistance. This Bill ensures that the generous contribution which State funds make will remain and if a promoter elects to site his industry in any other part of the country, the scope of assistance which will be forthcoming will be very much less.

Some Deputies made the point that the amount of the differential should be greater in the assistance that would be given, with a view to preserving the position of industries which might be likely to go to the undeveloped areas. I think that point does not matter very much. There is a substantial difference in the rate of assistance in the case of buildings. Under former legislation and amending legislation, the site for the building of a factory in the undeveloped areas qualifies for a grant contribution, as far as I know, of 100 per cent. of the cost up to an agreed maximum. As against that, a similar proposal in other parts of the country would qualify for only two-thirds. There is also a difference of approximately 20 per cent. in the grant made available towards the provision of machinery and plant for an industrial undertaking in one area as against the other.

The recent White Paper issued in connection with Economic Expansion has given us a certain line of thought. If the proposals contained in that White Paper are to be implemented with any degree of success, we must extend the existing arrangements for the setting up of industrial concerns. The Bill is, therefore, a step in the right direction. I have some little fears that this amending legislation may not improved the prospects of the undeveloped areas. However, at the same time, I rather feel that the over all position, which must be taken into account in considering a matter of this kind, is such that the general economy of the country will be much the better of this Bill.

The most satisfactory feature of the Bill, in my opinion, is the provision which is made for an increase in the pool of grants. Heretofore, the maximum pool was £6,000,000. That is raised now to £10,000,000. With that very substantial measure of assistance for new projects and also with the facilities which are available—now in all parts of the country—from the industrial grants, I should imagine that the least worry any promoters might have when this new legislation has been passed will be the financial responsibility. Our whole difficulty has been to find from outside sources suitable industries to be set up here and operated with success.

I am particularly glad that the Minister has taken this very realistic step. In the terms of the Bill, he has endeavoured more or less to segregate the functions of the Industrial Development Authority and An Foras Tionscal. In the past, the general development of industry was somewhat frustrated by a certain amount of overlapping and confusion existing in the general operation of these two bodies. I understand the new arrangement is that the Industrial Development Authority will go out into the market and try to secure the type of industry which appears to be suitable for the economy of the country. Then, having examined the bona fides of any proposal which the Authority may succeed in securing, it will pass that proposal on to An Foras Tionscal, with its recommendations. From then on, the question of assistance will be considered by An Foras Tionscal. This country has been very fortunate in having those two bodies working in the industrial sphere in the past.

Criticism has been made from time to time of the activities of An Foras Tionscal and the I.D.A. If one had the opportunity of studying at close range the scope of their activities, it would not be so easy to find adverse criticism. They had a very difficult task. Some years ago, when the I.D.A. was established, the prospects of getting industrially-minded people to start industries here were almost negligible. At that time the I.D.A., who had very little means at their disposal, had to canvass outside sources to interest them in industrial activity here. After they had engaged in what I regard a very effective medium of publicity, we found foreign interests were coming here and making inquiries from the I.D.A. about the possibility of getting local people interested in the setting up of an industry. There is no doubt that very substantial progress was made as a result of the liaison between the I.D.A., the promoters to whom I have referred and local groups.

I agree that the general trend of I.D.A. policy was somewhat conservative. We have to understand however that that body was working within certain limits in accordance with the policy of the Government of the time. They were not entirely free agents in the matter of making decisions and their task was made unduly difficult by virtue of that. I would prefer if these bodies could get a more unrestricted scope of authority. If possible, their hands should not be so tied. The experience both these bodies have gained in dealing with industrial projects has fitted them, at this stage, to do a very important job.

Considering the large number of proposals that had to be dealt with by both bodies and the number of partial failures or failures which took place, one is inclined to wonder how such a volume of success was attained at all. I want to avail of this opportunity to congratulate the I.D.A. and An Foras Tionscal for the wonderful work they have done in the industrial field. Possibly it would be more encouraging and helpful to their efforts if there could be a clearer understanding of the assistance they have rendered in the industrial revival in this country.

During this debate, one Deputy made the point that these bodies were more or less independent and not answerable to this House. The point was also made that when the Minister for Industry and Commerce is queried about any decisions or activities of either body, he is inclined to take up the attitude that they are autonomous concerns and, as such, he has no responsibility for their work. It would be much better to have the Minister in a position to answer any reasonable queries in the Dáil in regard to the general activities of either body. In particular, it would be highly desirable if their reasons for refusing a grant for a project were given to any responsible representative of the promoting authority. I know that the I.D.A. or An Foras Tionscal will not normally assign the reason a proposal for a grant is refused. That is rather discouraging. Once there is a reason, it is only common courtesy that it should be conveyed to the people concerned.

We have in this Bill some provision whereby industrial concerns all over the country can get special loans at a higher rate than that heretofore available. In some instances this type of aid was not available for machinery and plant in the past. The improvement now in that connection will be found very useful in industry, particularly in cases where proposals for the extension of existing concerns are being considered.

Deputy Corry made what I regard as a very important point concerning the manufacture of agricultural machinery and equipment. He is quite right when he says that several dozen makes of tractors and agricultural machines sold in this country are all, unfortunately, imported. That is something that warrants attention. I should like to avail of this opportunity to ask the Minister to bring that point to the notice of the I.D.A. in the hope that they may be able to initiate proposals or get some group in this country to establish an industrial undertaking to manufacture agricultural machinery and equipment of a standard pattern and also, if possible, agricultural tractors. There is no doubt if we had an international war, as we had some years ago, our agricultural machinery would be in danger of coming to a standstill. It is very desirable that agricultural machinery and equipment should be manufactured at home as far as possible. The reason is obvious—so that parts and replacements would be readily available, and in times of emergency that is very important. Perhaps, as a result of the points raised in this debate, some action will be taken in that regard. It would be very desirable for our agricultural economy, apart from any question of industrial development. I sincerely hope the Minister will be able to get the Industrial Development Authority, or An Foras Tionscal, whichever is the appropriate body, to do something about that matter.

Generally speaking, if people want to be fair to this Bill, I think it will have to be admitted that it is absolutely necessary in existing circumstances. I sincerely hope that the various aids and assistances which are made available under the amending legislation will be availed of, and that the Bill will go a long way in helping to make up the deficiency which undoubtedly exists in our industrial development. I am glad that members on all sides of the House have admitted that the country is still very largely undeveloped. That, in itself, is a very good reason why this Bill should be brought forward, and why financial assistance, in the form of grants for the setting up of industries, should be available in different parts of the country.

I repeat that I feel the preference which is being shown to the undeveloped areas will protect the interests of those centres. I hope the Industrial Development Authority will set about the special drive which I understand is to be initiated for the setting up of industries through foreign capital, and that due stock will be taken of those parts of the undeveloped areas which have not been fortunate enough to have had a local industry already. In that connection, some centres have been very fortunate. I often feel there should be provision in legislation whereby a ceiling would be put on the total grant allocations to particular counties and particular zones of counties.

I want to point out that some towns have been very fortunate in obtaining grants for three or four industrial projects, whereas other towns have been unable to qualify at all. That may be due, of course, to the fact that in most cases such towns as I refer to are unable to put up what is regarded as a practical proposal to the central authority. The Industrial Development Authority and An Foras Tionscal have always taken the view that it is not for them to direct a promoter to any part of the country. They merely show him, on a map, where the undeveloped areas are situated, and indicate to him that there are a number of towns and centres in the undeveloped areas as a whole, which are anxious to provide a certain amount of local capital for industry. He is told to take his choice and it often happens that he chooses a town which has already got a grant under the Undeveloped Areas Act. In that connection, there should be some loading, if I may use that word, against a centre which has already been fortunate in the matter of grants. That would help to decentralise the general sitting of industries to a greater extent than occurs at the moment and, as another Deputy said this evening, it would tend to create a number of smaller types of industry in the large towns, which, I take it, is the sounder idea.

I, therefore, ask the Minister to endeavour to give some direction, if I may ask him to do so, to the Industrial Development Authority, with a view to that body giving as much preference as possible to those towns and centres where industries have not already been allocated.

A withdrawal from a position is often described in varying terms. It is referred to sometimes as a rout and other times as a retreat. This Bill comes under the heading of neither a rout nor a retreat. It is a shameless desertion of a position which was taken up in equally shameless conditions almost eight years ago.

We are now told that this Bill is absolutely necessary in existing conditions. How do the conditions which exist today differ substantially in any way from the conditions which existed at the time the major Bill was introduced in this House? How do the purposes fail to be reconciled? On the Second Reading of any Bill, we deal essentially with principle, the principle underlying the whole of the Bill, and the policy behind it.

As I listened here to as much of the debate as I have heard so far, I could hardly refrain from thinking what this House would be like and how different the silence which obtained today would be from the uproar which would obtain if this Bill were being introduced by Deputy Norton as Minister for Industry and Commerce. The benches opposite are filled now, substantially, with members from the undeveloped areas who would be packed over here raising an unearthly clamour of unseemly interruption. Misdirected motives would be attributed to the action of Deputy Norton, if that action were his, during the period of office of an inter-Party Government.

A review of the situation cannot be out of place. Eight years is a very short time in the life of a country's economy. It is even shorter for the purpose of planning, and when it comes to planning, we must always give pride of place to the Fianna Fáil Party, and particularly to the Taoiseach who, in his time as Minister for Industry and Commerce over a long number of years, has been responsible for most of the planning, with results that have been related not to the viability of our economy, but to a decisive success in the franchise results.

In the 1951 general election, the Fianna Fáil Party lost five seats in the areas which afterwards came to be known as the undeveloped areas under the principal Act. A Bill was then brought in for the purpose, mainly, of retrieving that position. Certainly, I know of no benefits, in my part of the country or in areas adjacent to it, which have accrued from any of the provisions in the principal Act. But in 1959, as Deputy Dillon has remarked, the Fianna Fáil Party have once again established a considerable ascendancy in the undeveloped areas and there is no longer any need to cater for a franchise result. The people in these areas can now fend for themselves once more, as they have always been allowed to fend for themselves in the past, if only they could be brought to realise that.

Last evening, I understand on an interjection by Deputy Corish, the Taoiseach frankly admitted that the result of this measure would be a drawing away of the people from the Gaeltacht and congested areas towards those areas in which industries were likely to be sited under this measure. That provides a very clear contrast with the objectives underlying the formation of a Gaeltacht Ministry and underlying the recent Gaeltacht Housing Act providing, as it did, not alone dwellinghouses but other amenities by way of hostels and holiday chalets.

Deputy Moloney talks about an honest approach. This is not an honest approach. This is a shameless desertion of a position occupied for the shameless reason of trying to retrieve political losses. In the same breath, we find Deputies on the opposite side asking the Minister, in the course of the discussion on this Bill, to give directions to the Industrial Development Authority and to An Foras Tionscal to give preference to towns where industries do not already exist. Does the real meaning of that exhortation escape anybody? It is a record for the future, so that Deputy Moloney will be able to go into any of the small towns in North Kerry and say: "The exhortation was given to the Industrial Development Authority, at my request, but of course, as you know, the Minister has very little control over that authority." In effect: "My dear voters in North Kerry, do not blame the Minister for Industry and Commerce and do not blame me. Blame the Industrial Development Authority and An Foras Tionscal"—an exhortation carefully planned and dishonestly conceived by a Deputy who asks for "an honest approach" to the problem.

The ceiling under the Principal Act was £6,000,000. The ceiling under this Bill is set at £10,000,000. I want to know now if the extra £4,000,000 is to be allocated to new areas and will the original £6,000,000 be retained for the undeveloped areas, for which it was originally earmarked? If that is so, I shall not be inclined to quarrel too much with this Bill. But I do not believe that that is so. I believe that ceiling is there in order to create the impression that the extra £4,000,000 will be for the spreading out of the area and that the £6,000,000 will be retained for the already scheduled undeveloped areas. Dishonesty again.

It is all very well for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance who represents the most extensive undeveloped area of them all— West Galway—to come in here and say: "I do not understand this." Did anybody ever hear such a statement? Imagine the scene there would be if Deputy Bartley were in Opposition and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance in the Government said: "I do not understand this Bill, which proposes to withdraw benefits from the undeveloped areas." Deputy Bartley, in Opposition, would invite him to come down to Maam Cross as he invited people on the occasion of the debate here in 1951 on the original Bill.

What is wrong with Deputies in the Fianna Fáil Party from these undeveloped areas? What is wrong with the Deputies representing West Donegal and the other areas affected? What is wrong with them that they put allegiance to a Party and the silence engendered by discipline before the interests of the people they represent? Candidly, I do not understand them. I am sure nobody understands them, but I hope their constituents will understand them.

You cannot speak with two voices —one in Government and the other in Opposition. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and this is a measure designed—to paraphrase the words of the Taoiseach last evening —to draw people from these outlying undeveloped areas into more heavily concentrated areas of population. It has been stated by Deputy Carty from South Galway, with his usual candour, that this is a Bill which recognises one very fundamental fact at any rate, that the whole of the country is an undeveloped area. I do not believe that. I do not accept that. In particular, I do not accept it if it is put forward as a reason for the introduction of this Bill.

Is it to be acknowledged now that the economic purposes germane to the Principal Act have failed? Is it to be acknowledged now that the Government are seeking to extend the area as yet another ruse? Has the number of prospective investors and prospective industrialists, who were anxious to establish factories in outlying areas, been so small as to nullify the economic purposes of the Principal Act? Have we missed a great volume of either home or foreign investment as a result of people being reluctant to site their factories and invest their money in far-off places? There could be only one objection to the far-off place. There was no shortage of labour, no shortage of sites, no shortage of healthy conditions under which to work. Transport, carriage difficulties, possibly export difficulties by way of shipping, could really be the only objection.

Let us examine the section that proposes to give the Board power to move from the already scheduled area into a new area, which can be, under this Bill, as I see it, the City of Dublin, the City of Cork, the City of Limerick and any other large urban area. Section 2 sets out:—

(1) Whenever the Board—

(a) are of opinion that there are sound reasons why an industrial undertaking cannot be established or developed in the undeveloped areas and that the undertaking is, having regard to its size, character or the probable extent to which its products are likely to be exported, of exceptional national importance, and

(b) are satisfied that financial assistance by way of grant is necessary to ensure the establishment or development of the undertaking and that the undertaking will be of a reasonably permanent nature and will be carried on efficiently,

Taking the last part first, at the time of the granting of a large amount of money by the State to any body of men, however expert they are, who can state with any degree of certainty that the industry will be carried on efficiently? There might be grounds for believing that it will be carried on efficiently and that it will be of a reasonably permanent nature. What is the meaning of "reasonably permanent"? Does it mean that the industry will be there only for so long that public opinion will not be shocked at its closing down, having regard to the large amount of money that will be given towards its erection?

Sub-paragraph (a) says:—

Whenever the Board——

(2) are of opinion that there are sound reasons why an industrial undertaking cannot be established or developed in the undeveloped areas...

"Sound reasons". If either a home investor or a foreign investor investing his money here objected to putting the industry in a western town or village and selected, instead, some place convenient to the City of Dublin or the City of Cork because he knew he could do so under the provisions of this Bill and if local Deputies —it should be the concern of all—are aggrieved at the fact that the industry did not come to the western town and put down a question to the Minister for Industry and Commerce asking what the sound reasons were that brought the factory into the vicinity of Dublin or Cork, they will not be told. They will be told that it was contrary to public policy and contrary to the practice to disclose the reasons why private investors did this or that. The last part of the reply will be, "It is a question for the Board and the Deputies should get in touch with them".

We all know the success that would attend any attempt to get a reply to a query of that kind. So that, the sound reasons as to why it could not be established or developed in the undeveloped areas can be obscured.

"Having regard to its size, character or the probable extent to which its products are likely to be exported"— did anybody ever hear anything more general in terms? Nothing can be pin-pointed. "Having regard to its size"—what size? Does it mean if it is too big or if it is too small? "Character or the probable extent to which its products are likely to be exported". Any investor unable to take advantage of a charter such as this can hardly deserve anything if he fails.

I protest against the provisions of this Bill in so far as, without qualification up to now, they tend to leave the whole of that £10,000,000 free to those who want to avail of it outside the existing undeveloped areas. I protest against the provisions of this Bill, designed as they are further to denude the Gaeltacht and congested areas. I protest against the provisions of this Bill as fraudulent provisions designed to cover up the original fraudulent position.

This is the first occasion on which I heard Deputy Lindsay and Deputy Corry speak with one voice, saying that the House should have some say over the spending of the money by the Industrial Development Authority. There must have been something wrong in the administration of affairs in the past when those two Deputies, who are so bitterly opposed on other occasions, came in here to this House this evening and denounced and condemned the existing system. They belong to two different Parties which, one after the other, had the administration of affairs, Fine Gael had their turn and they did not undo the wrong. Fianna Fáil are now in power and I am wondering what they will do about it.

It sounds rather strange to me that the Deputies who represented my constituency in the past, Deputy Collins, Deputy Murphy and Deputy Cotter, failed to bring home to the responsible authority the absolute necessity of getting something done in the undeveloped area of West Cork but when I realise that it was altogether outside their scope even to ask a question in this House on that very subject, it strikes me very forcibly that something more important than the introduction of this Bill is necessary to get things done in the undeveloped areas.

Having listened to Deputy Corish and to the reply from the Taoiseach last night, I wondered if my ears were deceiving me until I read in the paper today that it was an actual fact that industries were to be set up outside the undeveloped areas to attract the people from those areas. If that be the purpose of the Bill, surely it is not what we would expect. I should like some clarification on this whole matter.

The Undeveloped Areas Bills, 1952 and 1957, were condemned here this evening for their ineffectiveness. They certainly proved very ineffective in West Cork because not one industry of any description was established there and not one penny was spent in that vast territory. If the Deputies for the area had anything to say in the matter, that would not happen. I agree with the advice given by Deputy Corry and Deputy Lindsay this evening that something should be done in the near future or embodied in this Bill to give powers to Deputies at least to ask a question as to how the money passed by this House will be spent.

It would be very desirable to have a few new industries established in the undeveloped areas. I feel that the idea behind this Bill, in particular, is to give a considerable sum of money for the establishment of a few major industries around Dublin. If that be the case, you will have the people fleeing from the undeveloped areas, fleeing from rural Ireland into Dublin and into the cities because they are bound to follow the money and to follow the work.

There are plenty of schemes which could fruitfully be developed along the seaboard counties. It would be desirable, when setting up an industry, that the raw material be as close as possible to the site of the industry. Along the Western and Southern seaboard we have some very fine harbours and some very fine fishing grounds. The development of these harbours, of the fishing industry and its subsidiary industries would be of the greatest importance and of the greatest advantage.

One of the first Questions I asked in this House was about the setting up of a factory in Baltimore Fishing School. That magnificent building has been lying idle for a number of years. It is a monument to the neglect by successive Governments in this country of that area which has a fine harbour with a railroad into it, public water, and everything necessary for the setting up of an industry. It would cost thousands of pounds to construct that fine building today.

When I asked that Question, I was told that nothing could be done about the industry I had suggested. I recommended a net-making factory because at one time in that very fishing school in Baltimore they supplied nets not alone to Ireland but to many countries in Europe. When the school closed down the net-making industry died and there has been no industry there since. A little is being done in the boat yard and it is giving reasonably good employment to about 20 men. The boats are able to take to the water successfully but, without doubt, it is an area which could be developed and which is open for development. The men in the parish are good, hardworking and industrious. They can hold their own wherever they go.

Would the Deputy make any attempt to promote that industry?

Let the Deputy make his speech.

I am entitled to ask the Deputy a Question.

I only asked a Question about it. I never claimed to be an industrialist.

One is not supposed to open one's mouth here at all.

However, I would help in every way and I would get plenty of local people to help also.

Why not begin it?

I have no doubt about it, but we do not claim to have the "know-how". An Foras Tionscal was set up to help in the development of industry in the undeveloped areas and to get people to impart the knowledge they had to people who were so backward that they were not able to do it for themselves. When they were not able to do it for themselves, no other body did it for them, either. That was the position.

I can assure the Minister, Deputy Loughman and the members of An Foras Tionscal that they will get all the help and co-operation they require and, I feel, more help and co-operation than they got in any other part of Ireland. I believe that if an industry is established there it will be a success. The people are not shy of work. They are prepared to work. They go abroad and do it abroad whereas they would much prefer to do it at home. I said on the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture that a farm can go only to one son. As a rule, families are large and it would be far better if the rest of the family could get employment at home rather than be compelled to emigrate to build up other countries.

I do not know how much of this £10 million will go into my area or, for that matter, into any area. The bulk of it must come from the farming community because the farming community are the greatest taxpayers. There is great interest this evening in how all this money will be spent— much more interest than there was last week in the Debate on the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture.

In view of the fact that the farmers, as taxpayers, must provide most of the money, I feel they should be provided with a considerable amount of the work in rural Ireland if at all possible or in the towns adjacent to rural Ireland because if a town becomes prosperous, as a result of an industry, the hinterland is likely to benefit from that prosperity. I am sure there is no necessity for me to impress all this on the Minister, who is a Corkman. I feel that, as a Corkman, he will be interested in what I am telling him and try to focus some attention on that area which has been neglected for so long.

Deputy Corry spoke at length on the prosperity of East Cork and on the number of factories which he was responsible for having set up there. I congratulate him. The last thing he said to me when he was leaving was to fight hard and that I would succeed. I am not as good a fighter as Deputy Corry but I have put the case as plainly as I can that we have been neglected in the past. I look with confidence to our new Minister to do something, now that the door is open wide. If he does it, he can claim he has succeeded where others have failed.

That is unfair pressure, of course.

I would not say so. If Deputy Corry were speaking from these benches this evening, there would be sparks flying.

Even Fianna Fáil are getting used to Deputy Corry.

Do you think he would be better if he were in Opposition?

Deputy Wycherley, on the Bill.

I believe if he were in my shoes and if he were a West Cork man there would be skin and hair flying as a result of the way West Cork was treated.

You could draft him in.

He spoke at length on what was done in East Cork and I should like to speak at length of what was not done in West Cork.

Not too long.

I was delighted Deputy Corry mentioned that an industry was coming to Skibbereen. It will be very welcome there and I can assure the Minister he will get the full support of the people of Skibbereen, Baltimore, and every other part of the area for that matter. I do not like to be too parochial when speaking on a Bill of such importance, but seeing that the area has been neglected so long, I would ask the Minister to forgive me for being so parochial on this subject because it is a matter which concerns the people very much.

I should like to join with some of the other Deputies in congratulating very earnestly the new Minister for Industry and Commerce. I wish him a very successful period of office and a very pleasant time while he holds the office of Minister for Industry and Commerce. This debate was very interesting for a long time this evening, but then some of the Deputies, naturally interested in their own respective areas, went into great detail about their own problems there.

This industrial question is one of great national importance and should be approached from a national point of view. When I first heard of this Bill, I anticipated it was a Bill to intensify the industrial drive in the undeveloped areas. We realise the contrary now. It is an admission of failure, of a lack of faith on the part of the Government in the possibilities that we thought were in the undeveloped areas. The fact that the Taoiseach last night made the statement about industries enticing people from the undeveloped areas is sufficient indication of his change of conviction in recent years.

These changes are natural. I know a good part of the Kerry undeveloped area and in realism, I am forced to say that it is very hard to expect the people to live in those areas. We all have a regard for these undeveloped areas for historical and sentimental reasons. I should be very saddened to see these people leave the ancestral homes they love so much. I know one part of the Kerry Gaeltacht where the people are almost cleared out, and on the Blasket Islands which carried a population up to a couple of years ago there is nobody at all. There is a tendency for the people to leave even the mainland adjacent to the Blaskets because the attractions of to-day entice them to go forth. I regret the people should be leaving the Gaeltacht which is of great value for its culture and language. Unfortunately, we do not make sufficient use of the Gaeltacht from a cultural point of view and of the language they held so well and so purely down through the years.

Industrial development is vital to the survival of this nation. Agriculture has been developed to saturation point along many lines and there is no great room for expansion except in relation to grassland and carrying a greater number of livestock. We must fall back on industrial development, if we are to survive as a nation. Considering all the money that was poured into industry over the years and all the assistance by way of tariffs, and so on, that was given, it is pathetic that we have not had the results anticipated many years ago. It is regrettable that the people are still forced to leave in large numbers and that for a long number of years we have been carrying a big army of unemployed. In the O.E.E.C., we are classified as an undeveloped country. We must rest satisfied with that designation. We are undeveloped. In so far as we cannot support all our own people and we have a record army of unemployed, it must be that we are undeveloped. We should not therefore make such a fetish of the undeveloped areas of the West.

I agree with some of the Deputies who spoke about decentralisation. It is an illusion to find within 20 or 30 miles of Dublin such vast development, an area with one-fifth of the population of the country, when the other parts of the island are neglected. I thought there would be some change of heart in that respect and some effort made to decentralise industry in the Twenty-Six Counties. What we need most is heavy industry that will give employment to the male population. A generation ago, the sons and daughters of farmers remained on the land. They gave their talent, labour and time to the development of the farm and all the activities associated with it and then they married. That day has gone. Such people want to be independent in their youth. They want to have their positions and they compete with the people from the towns and cities for the employment offered there. There is a complete change in that respect.

If we entice people from the undeveloped areas into the more favoured areas, we shall create a greater unemployment problem. If these areas become deserted and denuded of their people, you will have concentrated areas of population and you will have increased difficulties arising with regard to employment and unemployment. While we have made certain industrial advances, they are not at all sufficient to give us stability. I do not know whether it is our own fault. Our people have become quite indifferent and careless and that civic spirit that showed itself here 30 or 40 years ago is no longer in evidence

In those days, the people insisted on being provided with an Irish-made article. I think that spirit has gone. We are slow to support the things we produce here. The people grouse, talk and criticise the fact that these industries are highly protected. Nevertheless, so long as they give employment to our people and so long as their prices are at all competitive, we should be disposed to support them. It is that lack of spirit which is responsible in a large way for the stagnation in regard to industrial advance in recent years.

It is regrettable to find on the figures quoted in recent times that only in one year since the war has our industrial output shown an increase, of 4 per cent., and 2 per cent. in other years. That is negligible, especially when compared with the advances made by those war-ravaged countries which had to face great difficulties. I am sure that the motives behind this Bill were the best. Nevertheless, the Bill was brought in in a spirit of realism and honesty and backed by the experience that the difficulties which face the establishment of industry in the West are insurmountable and that eventually, while they will get every encouragement, industries will have to be developed where the people promoting them will have all the facilities with regard to markets, shipping and so forth. I think it is hard to cater for all their tastes.

That seems to me to be the cause behind the introduction of this Bill. I regret that it is a complete reversal of policy and that the undeveloped areas will have to compete with the most favoured areas. That does not speak well for their chances of survival.

Could the Deputy say how they are more favoured?

They are near the ports and labour is available and all that.

I think the best contribution I heard today in connection with this matter was that made by Deputy Manley. It was very sincere. I should like to join with him in extending congratulations to the new Minister for Industry and Commerce who was Minister for Education for the past couple of years and who did so much to satisfy the teachers in their demands. I can assure the Minister that the teachers are grateful to him for his good work. Let us hope he will be equally successful in the Department of Industry and Commerce as he gains experience.

I do not know exactly how to deal with this Bill. We are dealing more with the Department of Industry and Commerce than with this Bill. The Undeveloped Areas Bill was introduced first by the previous Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Lemass, now the Taoiseach, with the intention that industries might be established in the undeveloped areas which really mean the western seaboard. Certain grants would be given for the establishment of those industries.

We expected a great deal from that. Personally, coming from one of these areas, I did not expect that much would come from it because there are certain difficulties. There is the question of transport and lack of raw materials, so that it would be very difficult at any time to set up industries in these remote areas. They would, of course, be industries of a certain type. If you want to have industrial progress in any portion of this country, you must depend solely for that progress on having raw materials in the vicinity of the place where the industry is set up.

The previous Minister found, and I am sure the present Minister also will find, that it is very difficult to set up industries in these undeveloped areas. Attempts were made to bring in industrialists from abroad. They set up in certain areas along the western seaboard some types of industry which would really be an indication of the type of raw materials that might be produced in the area. In my constituency of South Kerry and also on the western seaboard, they had not the great success we expected.

That is the position. I do not blame the Minister or the Department for that. I am sure that when the Minister introduced, first of all, the Undeveloped Areas Bill he hoped that something would come out of it, that greater employment would be given and that we could, therefore, do something in connection with stopping emigration. That has not come about. I presume that before he left his Department, the Bill now before the House was prepared by him, knowing full well that the first Bill was a failure because his hopes were not realised in connection with the setting up of industries in the western seaboard areas.

I do not think it is fair to those areas that a Bill should be introduced which really means, so far as I can see, that any person or company in any part of the Republic of Ireland will be given such a grant and such facilities as were meant at first to be given to industrialists who were willing to set up factories in the undeveloped areas along the western seaboard.

That is really what I cannot find out. Is it really true? If it means that grants are to be available for future industrialists or persons who want to set up factories in any part of the Republic of Ireland and that they will be entitled to the same facilities and grants as were available under the Undeveloped Areas Act, I think the Undeveloped Areas Act is now being superseded by this Bill. Therefore, so far as we on the western seaboard are concerned we must now compete with industries and factories set up in any part of the country. I am not too sure if that is the case but I am sure that the Minister will make it clear.

The Minister must now realise, as the Taoiseach realised I suppose when he was Minister for Industry and Commerce, that the Undeveloped Areas Act was never a success. I suppose because of difficulties of transport and the difficulties associated with raw materials and the distances from the centre of distribution one could scarcely expect an individual or a company to set up an industry in these remote areas even though they would get a substantial Government grant. I am afraid we have now come to the position when the undeveloped areas, as they were called, along the western seaboard from Cork to Kerry and in West Cork, will be forgotten and the same facilities as we had in those undeveloped areas will be afforded to people setting up industries in any part of the country. If that is the position it is a serious matter for those areas although, as I have already said, I never had any hope that what would follow from that Act would ever develop into anything for the benefit of the western seaboard areas.

I could talk for a long time in regard to the neglect of the western areas but I am sure that all Governments established since the setting up of this State have done their best to do something for the welfare of the people there. No Government has yet succeeded. It is a difficult problem. In fact, to give them their due, there was under the English Government the Congested Districts Board which did a great deal of good work in connection with the improvement of those congested areas in the West. No Department of a native Government has ever done so much as was done in those times and I know that vast sums of money have been spent in trying to improve the conditions of the people there. They are still in the same conditions as when I first knew them and as I know them after almost 40 years of native government.

Is the Minister for Industry and Commerce going to promote a Bill which will give the same facilities to people in the eastern part of the country, in the midlands and in areas where agriculture and industry are at the height, if I may say so, of their prosperity, and leave the western seaboard again neglected? We must understand that people who want to establish industries, either within or without the country, will not establish them along the western seaboard, in the undeveloped areas, when they can get the same facilities to establish them along the eastern seaboard and in the midlands.

This is a very serious question, one which is well worth the consideration of the Government. I am sure that the Minister will see that before this Bill is passed it will contain provisions, stricter provisions than those already in it, by which the people on the western seaboard will be safeguarded and that an assurance will be given to them that wherever industries are to be established, or where industries are to be decentralised, the congested undeveloped areas will get all the facilities possible by which grants will be made available for people deserving to establish industries there. That is the principal point that I want to stress. We heard Corkmen speak here today. Corkmen can always put up a strong case but in Kerry we always think about ourselves too. We are not unfriendly with Cork people but I hope the Minister when he is dealing with these matters will think of Kerry, north and south.

In the last stages of Deputy Palmer's speech, he seemed to indicate that he felt there was no difference between the grants given to establish factories in what is known as the undeveloped areas and those provided for other parts of the country. There is a one hundred per cent. grant given for factories in the undeveloped areas as against a 50 per cent. grant in any other part of the country. So far as machinery is concerned there is a 50 per cent. grant compared with a one-third grant in other parts. A point which struck me when the last two or three Deputies were speaking was that they did not really understand the position of the Government or the position of local people. I always took it that we went in for private enterprise to a great extent and while we did establish a number of State-sponsored manufacturing industries—if it were possible to establish others we could agree to them—in the main our industrial effort is to be made through private enterprise. The most that can be expected of the Government is that they will make it easier for any industry to prosper, by giving grants to help build a factory and by providing it with such protection as will enable it to compete with goods brought in from abroad.

I listened to Deputy Wycherley and put him a question, when he was talking about a net factory somewhere in his own constituency. I asked him what effort he made to promote that industry there and the reply I got led me to believe that he expected the Government to go down there and start the industry themselves.

Listening to Deputy Manley one would think that the industrial revival during the past 30 years was a complete failure, but Deputy Manley is old enough to remember the position of industry in Ireland thirty years ago. In one town which I know not one person was employed in industry in 1932 where between 800 and 900 people are now employed in local industry. Practically 100 per cent. of the goods manufactured there were being imported in 1932. Every Deputy in the House who talks about the little progress made during the last 40 years is talking through his hat. Deputies must admit that wonderful progress has been made in this country over the last 40 years and, at present, industry has reached the stage in which we are able to meet our full home requirements and must look for export markets. If Deputies kept that in mind they would not talk about the little progress made in industry. We provide most of the articles that we need in Ireland today from home manufacture and, if we had markets outside this country which could absorb the same quantity as is produced for the home market, we would have solved our difficulties.

We are told that there are difficulties in securing markets abroad. We know that some bad effects have arisen as a result of the creation of the European Common Market and that that, perhaps, tends to prevent industrialists coming in here and using Ireland as a place in which to manufacture goods for export to those countries. Deputies should remember these factors when they talk about the promotion of industry. In my opinion, local effort is the first essential if industries are to be started here. Local people must do something towards promoting new industries. If, in their own part of the country, or in their own town, there is no one with the necessary knowledge of the manner in which to go about starting an industry, they should look for somebody who has that knowledge and make it worth his while to provide them with every piece of information that would help them to start industries.

Deputy Manley used a phrase which is heard frequently here, that O.E.E.C. look upon Ireland as an underdeveloped country. I have always understood that "underdeveloped" in these circumstances meant that it was underdeveloped from the point of view of industry. It must be remembered that we have been industrialised only in the last 30 years and that in future we shall be competing with all highly-industrialised countries in Europe. Therefore, it is reasonable, when our representatives are making bargains as far as Ireland is concerned with highly-industrialised countries, that they should try to seek concessions for us, and to maintain the tariffs and other protective methods for industry existing at present. We do not apply the term "underdeveloped" in the sense that it is often used from the benches opposite. Naturally we try to get the best possible terms we can when making arrangements for this country. I think it is only just that our representatives in these negotiations should insist that we get the benefit of concessions in the European Common Market and the Free Trade Area which will enable us to compete with other countries. I do not think there is anything wrong with that. It is wrong to use that term "underdeveloped" in the manner in which it is used by some people to the discredit of our country.

The Taoiseach mentioned this country as one of the underdeveloped areas, with Greece, Turkey and some others.

He said we were linked with those countries in a particular fashion.

Underdeveloped.

Of course, if the Deputy only wished to find out, he would discover the Taoiseach did not say anything of that description. Our aim should be to establish industries to export goods. The Irish market is saturated by our own products. Like Deputy Palmer I can remember a time when articles made in Ireland could not be purchased in our shops, and I am rather proud that most of the goods we buy at the present time are manufactured here at home Our aim in future should be to have industries developed which may help in the export of good Irish products.

This is actually the first Bill, the Second Reading of which was commenced since the present Taoiseach was elected, and it proposes to reverse the policy which he initiated when he gave particular attention to the undeveloped areas. I am chary of leading people into the belief that something extraordinary will come their way, particularly people who are in a very bad position and who look for guidance and assistance. It is unfortunate if they are led to believe that something great, something spectacular, will come in consequence of legislation, of Government initiative, and that then in a short time they find that the same Government realise that what they had done in the first instance had not proved successful and, in consequence, legislation such as this is necessary.

Deputy Loughman referred to the wonderful progress made. There is no doubt progress has been made but is it all that wonderful? With our unemployment and emigration figures, can we claim that the encouragement given to industries has resulted in the fruition of the hopes of those who originally were responsible for giving the protection to industry which it received? Surely the advances made in industries have been gained, to a great extent, at the expense of the agricultural community. Is it not true that the Taoiseach, who was the originator of the whole idea of fostering industry by the method of giving protection to new industries, has now declared that, in his view, we have come to the end of the road and that world trends, particularly European trends, present problems which will make it necessary to revise drastically our whole policy in relation to the protection of industry?

We know that quite a number of very long-established industries have proved of immense advantage to the country from the economic point of view, and from the point of view of providing employment, but they were industries, established under private initiative, which looked to the State for little or no help. In fact the State, far from assisting, has, by its taxation policy, put many obstacles in their way. We should not claim that the only industries we have are industries that have prospered solely in consequence of the support which they received from the State. It is true that the hopes inspired by the original Undeveloped Areas Act have not been realised and that those who were so vehement at the time in declaring the high hopes which they held must today feel very humble, in view of the fact that they have to eat their words because they must have realised at that time that we could not expect that very many of these people, despite the immediate capital facilities that were made available to them, would be attracted into areas so far removed from the points at which they would have to import the constituent parts of an assembly industry and perhaps later export their products again. It was requiring them to carry an insupportable load in transport and otherwise.

Manufacturing industry is something which is very hard to launch here; it is not traditional. It is to some extent satisfactory even now that the Taoiseach has in the past 12 months delivered some strictures on the people he nursed for so long and has reminded them that, in quite many instances, they have not lived up to the support they received through the years and that in years to come they must stand more on their own feet. It is true to say that he also seems to adopt the policy of his predecessor at least in encouraging foreign industrialists to come here. The present measure is significant only in so far as it records the failure of the Government to make any worthwhile achievement through what was presented as the be-all and end-all for the problems which were in existence and still exist in the undeveloped areas which lie along the western seaboard.

While we are dealing with this subject, I wish to protest against some of the false hopes that are inspired by flamboyant propaganda in papers directly under the control of the Party in Government. From time to time, we see elaborate claims for what will ensue from the establishment of particular industries. The Sunday Press published an article stating that a jewellery factory which would be established in Bandon would give employment to 300 people.

Surely the Minister has no responsibility for what appears in the newspapers.

The Taoiseach's Party are responsible for the paper and I presume responsible for its contents.

That is a matter which does not arise on this Bill.

In fact, when I referred to this previously, the former Minister for Industry and Commerce agreed that it was no assistance to give out these false ideas because the people are then led to entertain hopes which are dashed to the ground in a short time.

Down through the years, we have maintained the Control of Manufactures Act and, as we all know, any competent lawyer can drive a coach-and-four through it. It would be well, if the Government are revising industrial policy, that they should consider the complete abandonment of that measure because they also have admitted its failure and have now adopted a policy of trying to encourage outside interests to participate in industry here. It is an extraordinary thing that while we talk and give lip-service to the requirements of our undeveloped areas, and discuss going into parts of Ireland where there is no industrial tradition whatever at the very moment we are trying to do this, our competitors, to whom Deputy Loughman referred, may be, according to the news which has reached us this evening of the discussions in London, striking a very serious blow at our bacon industry.

These are the things to which we should apply ourselves. Our people have a traditional interest in them. The bacon industry is something which has proved down through the years to be an industry of definite value and one which is of the greatest assistance to the whole country. These are the matters that we should really attend to and it is neglect in that field that is the most serious aspect of government at this time.

I feel that the presentation of this matter to the Dáil as part of Government policy, as this matter has been brought forward, calls for very serious consideration on their part. The attitude of the Taoiseach yesterday was to admit very definitely that this was a policy that was intended to assist the transfer of the population from the western districts to the greater centres of population.

That is a misrepresentation that has grown and grown throughout this debate. The Taoiseach said no such thing and I invite the Deputy to look at the Official Report.

I certainly shall, and I invite the Minister to address himself particularly in this matter to the implications of what the Taoiseach did say yesterday.

I shall quote it verbatim if I get a chance.

Very good. It is very desirable that the Minister should do that and I am very glad if I have intervened in a way that would suggest that that has been misrepresentation of the Taoiseach because I think, from the point of view of the serious approach to industrial policy, to social policy in the country, it is most desirable that on a piece of legislation that is one of a series of pieces of legislation, a wrong impression should not go out because it would seriously affect the whole of the policy approach of the Government and the whole atmosphere in which the Dáil is discussing this matter, if we did start off with a wrong impression as to what were the intentions of the Government in the matter or as to what the effect of the proposals in this Bill will be on those concerned.

There is one aspect of the matter that deserves very serious consideration and I am surprised that the Minister for the Gaeltacht has not been in attendance at this discussion on this measure because it very vitally affects that part of the west in which, as regards social cultural and economic matters, he is supposed to be particularly interested.

The Minister for the Gaeltacht was recently down at Carna thanking the people there for what they have been and for what they have stood for in the educational life of the country. He said it was most important that a special representative of the Government should pay them a visit such as he was paying at that time to show how important the Government considered the maintenance of the populations in the Irish speaking districts to be, from both the economic and cultural points of view. It seems to me from what has been said in regard to this measure, that the effect of the measure will be to withdraw the impulse for any kind of industrial development that might normally be expected to take place in the purely Irish speaking districts with the assistance and under the patronage of the Minister for the Gaeltacht and it will make that Minister's problem particularly difficult.

I feel that this discussion on the Second Stage should not end without the Minister for the Gaeltacht coming here and helping the House to understand what the effect of the measure is likely to be on the areas that form a substantial part of his responsibility. The Minister says that to suggest that the purpose of the Bill is to withdraw the population from the western districts and build them into employment in the eastern part of the country is misrepresentation of the Government's policy.

It is misrepresentation of what the Taoiseach said.

Debate adjourned.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, July 9th 1959.
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