I move amendment No. 1:—
In subsection (1) (a), page 2, to delete all words from and including "cannot" in line 23 down to and including "areas" in line 24 and substitute "can be established or developed outside the undeveloped areas (but excluding the County Borough of Dublin, the Borough of Dún Laoghaire and the County of Dublin)".
The purpose of the amendment is clear. I am encouraged to put it down because the Minister mentioned in the discussion on the Second Stage that this Bill is in fact a re-enactment of the Industrial Grants Act, 1956. Section 2 (1) (a) makes the terms under which a potential industrialist can establish an industry outside the undeveloped areas more difficult than they were under the Industrial Grants Act. The industrialist, in addition to complying with the normal conditions for the grant, has to prove that the undertaking cannot be established or developed in the undeveloped areas and furthermore that the undertaking is of exceptional national importance.
In the Industrial Grants Act, 1956, the conditions in Section 2 (1) were as follows:
Whenever the Authority are of opinion that the manufacturer of a particular commodity to a substantial extent in the State would be in the interests of the national economy and would be likely—
(a) to provide employment on a substantial scale, or
(b) to make available in the State substantial quantities of the commodity, or
(c) to provide an opportunity for developing an export trade,
the Authority, if satisfied that financial assistance is necessary to ensure the establishment of an industrial undertaking to manufacture the commodity to a substantial extent and that the undertaking will be of a reasonably permanent nature and will be carried on efficiently, may, on such terms as they think proper, make grants towards the cost of the acquisition, construction and adaptation of the buildings and other works required for the purpose of the undertaking.
It goes on to provide for a maximum sum of £50,000 or two-thirds of the cost of the building, whichever is the lesser. The conditions now being provided are more onerous and take away from the advantages of the Industrial Grants Act, 1956, rather than give an additional advantage to those areas outside the undeveloped areas. Furthermore, if we intend to give assistance to areas outside the undeveloped areas, whatever form that assistance takes, it should be confined to that part of the country outside the city and county of Dublin and the borough of Dun Laoghaire. It is a fairly accurate description to say that the country is divided into the undeveloped areas, which areas covered by the existing Undeveloped Areas Acts, the undeveloped areas, which I regard as being the area outside the undeveloped areas, and the developed areas, which I regard as the city and county of Dublin and the area in that vicinity.
If you apply the same privileges to the entire area outside the undeveloped areas, it will follow logically that manufacturers wishing to set up an industry will tend to come to Dublin where they have tended to come over the years in which industrial development has proceeded. I think I am correct in saying that over the past 25 or 30 years some two-thirds of the industrial development which has taken place in the State has taken place in or near the city of Dublin.
From time to time every public man has paid lip-service to the policy of decentralisation, and every one of us at one time or another has inveighed against the growing size of Dublin. If we are ever to take any practical steps to induce industry to set up away from the City of Dublin, with its many advantages, some special inducement to industrialists to set up industries in the area outside Dublin will have to be included in this Bill or, to put it in another way, potential industrialists will have to be discouraged from setting up their plants near Dublin. Is it in order, Sir, to discuss amendments Nos. 1 and 2 together?