I move:
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £10 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1961, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, including certain Services administered by that Office, and for payment of sundry Grants-in-Aid.
This Estimate is necessary to cover the anticipated cost of recoupment in the year ending on 31st March, 1961, of ex gratia payments by Dundalk Engineering Works, Ltd., to former Great Northern Railway Board employees at the Board's Dundalk workshops for whom suitable employment could not be found in the group of companies set up to develop the Dundalk Works. On previous occasions, the House agreed to the provision of money required for this purpose as workers became redundant.
In the financial year 1958/59, a sum of £50,000 was voted, but actual expenditure was only £8,607, the balance being surrendered to the Exchequer. In the year 1959/60, a total of £104,010 was voted, and expenditure came to £96,597. For the current year, owing to the impossibility at the time the Estimates were being prepared of anticipating what sum would be required, a token provision of £10 was made. It can now be estimated that a sum of £190,000 will be required to meet payments under the scheme, which it is intended to terminate, if at all possible, before the end of the present financial year. It it thus estimated that total payments under the ex gratia payments scheme will come to about £295,000.
The amount now required can be met in full from savings on a provision of £1,200,000 made by way of Supplementary Estimate in July, 1960, for the purchase of shares in Irish Steel Holdings Ltd. under a new Subhead SS. Accordingly, the Estimate now submitted to the House provides only for a net sum of £10.
Deputies will be aware from the debate on the previous Estimates for this service that at the outset a great deal of uncertainty prevailed in regard to the prospects of ultimately establishing as viable concerns the group of industries created at Dundalk. It was necessary, in order to avoid the risk of making unjustified payments, to withhold declarations of redundancy until it was reasonably certain that suitable employment would not arise.
Between December, 1959 and 31st March, 1960, 167 workers were declared permanently redundant, a further 116 in August, 1960 and 218 more are now seen by the Dundalk companies to be in the same case.
The principals of the companies are doing everything in their power to find new economic production openings, to safeguard the continuity of employment of the remaining workers. Deputies will appreciate, however, that this group of companies must operate on ordinary commercial principles and that they cannot afford to employ workers unless there is genuine employment available for them, which, in turn, depends on the companies' ability to place their products on remunerative markets. In this respect the position of the workers will be no different from the position of workers engaged in any form of industrial activity.
I recommend that the House should approve of this Supplementary Estimate.
