I can imagine what Major-General Costello would do if he had a beet factory in Waterford and the amount of money he would earn for this country. He is now able to bring unrefined sugar into Waterford when the beet factories here are closed. He is able to unload it there, bring it to Carlow, refine it, bring it back to Waterford again and ship it out again refined. That is magnificent work. It is being shipped out to some of the greatest sugar people in the world. But how different it would be if he could take the unrefined sugar from the ship, bring it straight into the factory and then reload it on to the same ship again? I know the kind of tonnage deal Major-General Costello would make with that shipping company.
The story of Irish Cement so far as Waterford people are concerned is something that stinks. The market for cement was first investigated in the 1930s by a group of Waterford people at their own expense. An option was taken on a river side site close to limestone quarries. It had, as the saying is, road, rail and sea going into it. I saw the whole proposition set out in a beautifully bound book, a copy of which was sent to the Department of Industry and Commerce. Portland Cement were the people who were to come here, but the next thing we heard about it was that the factory was in Drogheda. That is a matter of fact. Good luck to Drogheda, but the people who introduced the project were cheated out of it. This is no laughing matter for people who actually put up their own money and did not make use of the Government's money.
There was also the question of a lace factory. The entrepreneurs were brought into Waterford in the late 1930's when the proposition was first made. There was silence and then we discovered that the lace factory was to open in Ennis. Then a legend was put out that the Waterford people would not put up any support for an industry. Yet Allied Ironfounders and Portlaw Leather were established, and in the case of Allied Ironfounders I think the capital of £100,000 or £120,000 was oversubscribed in a matter of 20 minutes. That is what happened in the place about which this miserable legend was put out.
During these years, in the 1930's, with the Economic War, the livestock trade was lost to Waterford and has never been recovered, and the great pig-buying industry in Waterford was destroyed by legislation in this House. We have bacon curers in the country at the present time and we had bacon curers then. We had four bacon curers in Waterford at that time and we now have two, and even though I often heard the sirens in those factories calling the workers back for overtime in the days before this penal legislation, in the days when we had a pig-buying industry in Waterford, we were able to ship upwards of 600,000 live pigs from Waterford that were not wanted by the Irish factories because they were too heavy. That might seem to be a matter within the scope of the Department of Agriculture but it was related to industry in Waterford. It was related to the wealth of Waterford and it was ruthlessly destroyed.
Coming on to the years after the war, there was a small battery factory at The Glen in Waterford and it just disappeared up to Dublin. H.M.V. radios, gramophones and records were going strong in Waterford but the rumour circulated that they were to come to Dublin. There was an approach made to the Minister but the Minister could do nothing about it. If it were anywhere else, it would not be allowed to move from the place, but away it went. An edible oil factory was started in the 1930's and then, after the war, we were told that McDonnell's margarine factory could not keep going in Waterford but had to move up alongside the edible oil factory. It closed down and if that happened in any other city or centre Deputies from that place would be coming in here moaning and groaning. Unfortunately the people of Waterford have a little bit of conservatism or independence and I would say it is a pity they have it.
Now we come to the chipboard factory. I know very little about this factory and about the nervousness of the people who are promoting it in Waterford. They appear to have got the disease that Waterford is a conquered city or is the same as a city of the southern States undergoing reconstruction and under martial law. They were afraid to mention this matter for over two and a half years to either myself or Deputy Kyne, who happened to be a member of the Opposition, so I can assure the Minister that he cannot hold it against these promoters, these entrepreneurs, that they had anything to do with the Opposition. There is a great deal of unemployment in Waterford because no local authority building is taking place. There are 1,200 men signing at the labour exchange in Waterford and the trade unions called a meeting last Saturday night to consider the position.
A great many people came to that meeting and said it was a pity it was called because it might embarrass the promoters. I think that is an extraordinary thing. I do not think it would embarrass the promoters for anybody to call a public meeting and ask that the industry be sent to Waterford. I am sure the Minister would take that in the spirit in which it was asked and I am sure he would not appear to be a tyrant and say: "You cannot have an industry now because you held a public meeting."
Deputy Ormonde, my colleague from Waterford, said it was ill-advised. The chairman of Waterford Harbour Commissioners said it should not have been brought about, but I consider it was the people's democratic right to ask, and it was interesting to hear what I heard at that meeting. There is a factory at Scariff in County Clare but the people who are promoting the Waterford factory say they have investigated the market and that they are not going to bother with the Clare factory's market. The whole thing boils down to the words in the Act in relation to the Government giving or not giving money to help an industry— that it should be of vital national importance. I submit to the Minister that in view of the treatment Waterford has got, it is of vital national importance and I might as well explain to him what the feeling in Waterford is about this.
The people there consider that the proposition in Waterford is so good that that is what is damning it. They consider that no stop should be put to it because the people promoting it are prepared to put £100,000 of their own money into it. At that meeting, I was surprised to hear this, and I quote Deputy Ormonde: "I understand there was a threat from the Scariff people that they would close down if there was a second factory established." I am informed that the Scariff people got £400,000 from public funds and I do not see what reason, they would have to close down if they had that money behind them and that kind of plant behind them. I think it would be good for this industry if there were two factories, from the point of view that they would have to get out and look for markets, but if this one industry is left there in Scariff, it will become one of our hothouse industries.
Another thing the Waterford people resent is this: they consider that Waterford is a better centre. It is situated near more of the forests in this country but, as I said before, whatever seems to be a good case for Waterford seems to damn Waterford.
I think the Minister should endeavour to stop some of the propaganda that seems to go on behind the Department of Industry and Commerce because it must be a source of terrible disappointment to people who sometimes build themselves up when they read the newspapers. Others say that you cannot believe anything you see in the newspapers because it is not true, but there must be a great many people who are unemployed and who must be greatly disappointed. Nearly every Sunday, in the paper supporting the Government, one reads about some new factory or industry being established. In the Irish Press of 2nd March, 1958, there was an announcement to the effect that a horsemeat factory was to be established in Limerick which would handle up to 25,000 animals every year. Those who knew realised that there were not so many horses to be bought, that the factory would not proceed. There it is with its licence from the Government to go ahead. It did not go ahead and it must have been a terrible disappointment to the local people.