Last night, I intervened for the purpose of getting a little more clarity as to the intention and effect of this Bill. I said, as reported in the Irish Independent this morning, that the attitude of the Taoiseach was “to admit very definitely that that was a policy intended to assist the transfer of the population from the western districts to the greater centres of...” Then the Minister interrupted to say that the Taoiseach said no such thing and that he would quote him verbatim. I was in the House here, listening to the Taoiseach's general line on this matter. It was suggested by Deputy Corish — again reported only in today's paper — that “he could not understand why special treatment should be afforded to people in any particular part of the country.” He said that they should “encourage people to come from underdeveloped areas to areas where there could be development.” The report in today's paper goes on:
Mr. Lemass: One of the effects of this Bill will be to do that.
When a Bill is brought in, one of the effects of which will be to bring people from the undeveloped areas into greater centres of population, the Government cannot divest themselves of the intention of doing that.
I raised the matter in relation to the general principle, so that we may not go blindly into such a situation. Even if it is inevitable, at any rate, we ought to know what we are doing. We are asked, in very hurried circumstances, to discuss a series of Bills here. We have the Undeveloped Areas Bill and the Minister admits that should not be the title of that Bill at all. While that title may be misleading in certain cases, I think it is a matter of advantage to this House that the Bill has been misnamed, because it draws attention to a very important part of the spectrum of our society, where industrial development is desirable and necessary. That development is necessary if the people in some of the western areas are not to go like the scraw off the rocks, without any possibility of any development in the area at all once the population is weakened to a greater extent. We have seen specimens in western areas where the arduous work of the people there in winning a living from the land has been made almost impossible by the reason of the absence of that stimulus to action which the having of neighbours around brings. There are arduous occupations in the West of Ireland, in the sea and on the land, where without the presence of an audience, the work will not go ahead and where without the presence of helping hands in difficulties, there is no courage in the people and no intention in the people to face their work.
I asked that we should hear the Minister for the Gaeltacht in the discussion of a measure which, it is admitted by the Taoiseach, will draw people from the undeveloped areas, in circumstances in which he expresses disappointment at the amount of development it has been possible to bring about in the western areas. With this background of legislation regarding the undeveloped areas, State grants and An Foras Tionscal, the Taoiseach definitely says that there is little field now for the development of industry in the country intended to supply native or local needs. All this concentration on the provision of additional capital, on increased millions of expenditure under this Undeveloped Areas (Amendment) Bill — which is not intended for the undeveloped areas at all — and on increased money being provided under the proposed Industrial Credit (Amendment) Bill, is intended, according to the Taoiseach, for the development of industry other than the smaller industries which provide for our own people here, that is to say, it is intended for the development of large export industries.
That is all right. While we are committing ourselves to the possible expenditure of very substantial sums in development, we ought not to be asked — as we are apparently being asked — to turn our minds entirely away from the conditions that exist in the Western areas and, particularly, from my point of view, in the areas for the protection and development of which the Gaeltacht Department was set up. That area has at its heart from 40,000 to 50,000 people, where the main concentrated residue of people who traditionally speak the Irish language is situated. Outside that, in the contiguous areas, the Gaeltacht Department is responsible for about another 70,000 or 80,000 people. But the returns given for the development that has taken place under the Undeveloped Areas Act and the meagre details included in the annual reports of An Foras Tionscal give no impression at all that any development has taken place in the areas that are the responsibility of the Gaeltacht Minister.
There has been a certain conflict of emphasis on some aspects of this Bill. It has been indicated that Section 1 gives an unfair advantage to the undeveloped areas, that is, to the areas for which the Undeveloped Areas Act was originally framed. There is no evidence — none at all — in anything that has taken place that that is so. On the contrary, there is very substantial evidence in the statements made by the Taoiseach, if not by the Minister, that the present developments in the proposals in the Bill and the increased money provided for industrial credit expansion hold no inducement at all and give no hope of any development taking place in a way that would help the areas for which the Minister for the Gaeltacht is responsible.
I appreciate that the situation as presented in the Dáil and the type of discussion for which an opportunity is offered to the Dáil lead to confusion enough without any deliberate misrepresentation of any aspect of the case. But I suggest to the Minister that when the Taoiseach comes along and says, as he said here in response to a suggestion that people should be encouraged to come from the West, that one of the effects of the Bill will be to do that, that statement, with the background of his general comment on the unsatisfactory development that has taken place up to the present under the Undeveloped Areas Act, at any rate should indicate to us what will happen in the carrying out of the work intended in the various Bills before us.
The problem envisaged when the Undeveloped Areas Bill was first introduced in 1952, and the problem particularly envisaged when the Gaeltacht Department was set up, should not be ignored; and it seems to me that it is being entirely ignored. Before the discussion on this measure concludes, the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for the Gaeltacht should address themselves very definitely to it and let us have a little more information.