(South Tipperary): As this is, I understand, a revised Estimate——
Committee on Finance. - Vote 40—Industry and Commerce (Resumed).
This is Vote 40 and the Minister is concluding on it.
(South Tipperary): I understand that the Estimate is being revised and I, therefore, ask if I can have permission to intervene at this stage in the debate to raise a small matter.
I do not know what the Deputy is referring to. This is the Estimate, I understand, that is before the House.
The Estimate in your hands is not the Estimate before the House, Sir.
The Vote is for £4,544,000.
The one that I have here has been circulated.
I do not know what the Minister has.
As I understand it, the Minister is concluding on the Estimate in the printed volume.
At the very best, I am sure the Deputy would appreciate that it would be unusual to come in in the middle of the Minister's speech.
The Minister is concluding on the printed Estimate, is not that so?
That is as I understand it. If Deputy Hogan wishes to ask a question—he says it is a small matter—there would be no difficulty in asking a question.
(South Tipperary): It would take me a quarter of an hour. It is in relation to a parliamentary question which I asked and which I thought I might raise on the Adjournment but in view of this revised Estimate coming before the House I thought I would ask the Chair's permission to raise it now.
As I understand it, the revised Estimate is not yet before the House and the Minister, when finished, is going to move the revised Estimate.
That is the Estimate that I will move.
The Minister will move the revised Estimate when he has concluded his speech on the original Estimate and, as I understand it, what the Whips have been told is that the Minister will move this revised Estimate when he is finished concluding on the printed Estimate. If that is so, when he moves a new Estimate, we have the right to speak on that, I suppose. Whether we have a new debate or not is entirely immaterial. Once the Minister makes a new proposal we are entitled to discuss it.
I take it the Minister is concluding on the Estimate before the House?
If there is going to be another debate, I have nothing to say about the old Estimate.
The Minister lets himself be shot down very quickly.
It is just that if I have to speak again——
The Minister should learn the rules of the House. He tried to cod the House, to defraud the House, in the figures he put before them before. If he came in here like a nice meek little boy he would admit his mistake and he would get an easy passage. If he wants it the other way, he will get it.
As the Minister for Finance explained—it is usual for the House to accept the explanations of Ministers—the Estimates were made early; the Budget was late. The Estimates were made prior to the issue of the pre-budgetary documents and the Budget. The figure now mentioned, the lesser sum for which I am asking the House, was mentioned in the pre-budgetary document of the Minister for Finance.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce told the House an untruth on 6th May.
What was that?
He said the Estimate was as printed in the Estimates Volume.
That was the Estimate.
It was not.
That was the Estimate and there was a revision.
Between that date and the date of the Budget ?
I cannot compete with the noise of the Deputy but I will compete with his reasoning.
The Minister might compete with the truth and the facts.
Does the Deputy insist that I take the extra £500,000. There is a reduction. Does the Deputy want me to take the original amount ?
I want the Minister to tell the truth.
I am asking the House for a lesser amount. Where does telling the truth come into it ? I had no trouble before with people on the question of my veracity, nor did I ever question anybody else's. The Deputy should not attribute lower motives to others than he would ascribe to himself.
This will hardly get us anywhere. I understood the Minister is concluding on the Estimate which was discussed.
Which was this Estimate.
The Estimate which was discussed ; that specifies it well enough.
This is like talking against the wind. The Minister for Finance explained that it was a revised Estimate. I intend to propose to the House that this revised sum be voted. Where is the untruth in that ?
If the Minister wants an explanation, I shall give it to him. The Minister moved a different Estimate from the revised Estimate. Under the Rules of Order, until he withdraws the motion he has moved, he cannot move another one. When he withdraws the existing one and moves the other one, then we shall have the right to speak on the new motion, and I propose to exercise that right.
I am not questioning the Deputy's right to speak but I am questioning his right to say I told an untruth. I am putting forward a proposal for a revised Estimate. If the Deputy wants to make something worse of that than it is, those are the Deputy's standards.
The Deputy moved an Estimate when he knew he had no "dough".
That would never worry Deputy Corry.
Deputy Corry is a bit upset because he is not down there as he expected to be.
Putting the question might resolve the matter.
I want to speak on the revised Estimate when it is moved. When the revised Estimate is moved, I have the right to speak. If the Minister chooses to move and complete the original Estimate, I have no right.
It is only right to point out that Deputy Sweetman merely said it was an untruth. The Minister seems to think there is something more, that something improper was said. Deputy Sweetman is suggesting the figures are untrue.
He said I told the House an untruth. I am much less concerned with what goes on in this House than I am with the question raised by Deputy Sweetman. I am not used to that standard and I do not think I will accept it.
The plain fact is the Minister told the House an untruth, that this was the Estimate that had been decided by the Government, when on 6th May this was the Estimate that had been decided.
I am going to ask the House to revise the Estimate in the light of the explanation given here by the Minister for Finance in regard to the Budget. I cannot see anything to be gained from telling the House any untruth, and if I am asking for a lesser amount from the House, I cannot see the Deputy's point. Has the Deputy decided what he wants?
I am waiting for the Minister to comply with the Rules of Order.
I shall now move a revised Estimate.
He cannot. I suggest under the Rules of Order he cannot move a new Estimate until he has withdrawn the original one.
That is for the Chair to rule.
Certainly.
He can move an amended Estimate.
Certainly, when he withdraws the original one, or a supplementary.
Will the amended Estimate be open for discussion?
All Estimates are put before the House for discussion, if the House wishes to discuss them.
That settles the matter.
What is the procedure?
The Minister may move an amended Estimate or he may move——
I now move a revised Estimate for the Department of Industry and Commerce.
There cannot be two motions before the House at the same time.
The House has discussed the other one.
It is still before the House. It is quite irregular to have two motions before the House at the same time.
I withdraw the original and propose a new sum of money now.
Perfect. That is what I have been saying.
The Deputy has been saying other ugly things.
I intend to say them again.
The Deputy ought to be ashamed of himself.
I intend to repeat exactly what I said before.
I do not think any useful purpose is served by continuing this barrage across the floor of the House.
Deputies will have before them now a revised Estimate for 1965-66 for my Department, the net effect of which is to reduce by £500,000 the amount originally asked for. This follows on the specific Capital Budget reduction made in the Estimate for my Department relating to the grant for Foras Tionscal. The revised Estimate of £7,044,000 for the year 1965-66 now compares with the sum of £7,778,330 in 1964-65, including Supplementary Estimates of £20 and £10 and shows a net decrease of £34,330. I, accordingly, wish to withdraw the resolution and introduce a revised Estimate. I move:
That a sum not exceeding £4,044,000 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1966, 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
On that new motion I want to repeat exactly what I said. I do not mind whether the Minister misunderstands it or not. The facts are quite simple. The Minister for Industry and Commerce on 6th May came in and produced to this House Estimate No. 40 of the Estimates Book as being the policy of the Government and the Estimate which the Government wanted the Dáil to pass. There were two explanations, as I said, for the approach in relation to that: one was that between 6th May and 14th May, Budget day, the Government in a panic changed the Estimate and reduced it. With regard to printing, I do not believe the question of printing comes into it at all. I believe what happened was that the Minister for Industry and Commerce came into this House and, as an untruth, told the House that the Estimate the Government wanted was the Estimate he introduced and moved that day. Perhaps the Minister, in a mistaken belief that he was tied by budgetary secrecy, proceeded to do that but, in fact, the Budget programme was published on the Friday and he made his speech in this House on the previous day, Thursday, 6th May. The Capital Budget which had the printed word in it was published the following evening.
As I said in relation to the Financial Resolution, Parliament as Parliament cannot possibly carry on if Ministers do not come in and truthfully explain the purpose of the moneys for which they are asking. It would have been perfectly easy for the Minister for Industry and Commerce, if he had wanted to do so on that occasion, to inform the House that he was moving the original printed Estimate but that there would be revisions in relation to it. I believe that at that stage he knew there were going to be revisions. I believe he agreed to the revisions. But he did not tell the House and that is why I say the Minister did not tell the House the truth.
I want to be quite clear on it. I do not think the Minister can deny that he was himself aware on 6th May that the Estimate had, in fact, been revised by the Government. If he says that he was not aware when he spoke on 6th May that the Government had, in fact, revised the Estimate, then I will of course accept his word that the Government did it behind his back.
This Estimate, as I say, has been reduced, and reduced in the way I have described. I venture to suggest that the revised Estimate in this form has been produced to the House only because of the row created here. There is no doubt whatever that the Government hope to get away with this. I will tell the House why. The reason for this is that the Government did not want to make the gap between what is being provided by way of current income and capital expenditure appear too big. That is why this Estimate was reduced in the way in which it was.
All Estimates, when they are prepared in the December prior to the commencement of the financial year, are varied as the months pass. That is why we have allowances for overestimation in the Budget because, as time goes on, the people in the Departments know that the full amounts they had originally thought in the previous December were likely to be expended will not in fact be expended. The process is continuous during the whole year right up to the very end of the financial year.
In this case there was a revision purely for the purpose of window dressing in the Capital Budget and my complaint against the Minister is not in relation to that window-dressing but in relation to the fact that he came in here on 6th May and did not tell the House that he had, in fact, already agreed to a revision of the Estimate. It is a revision of some consequence because the original Estimate provided for an increase of £465,000 over last year. The revised Estimate provides for a decreased amount in the total Estimate of £35,000 this year as compared with last year. That is a pretty substantial change in an Estimate, from an increase of £465,000 in the total to a decrease of £35,000. That was a material change which should have been put before the House on 6th May.
As I said when speaking on the Financial Resolution, I was not going to be too hard on the Minister for Industry and Commerce and, if the Minister had come in here to-day and said he was sorry, that he had made a mistake, that would have been quite understandable in relation to a Minister going into a new Department, though, it was, of course, a mistake that should not have been made. The fact is the Minister lent himself to a window-dressing performance by the Minister for Finance and, in so doing, did not tell the House the truth. He did not tell the House a lie and I have never suggested he did, but he did not tell the House the truth.
The Deputy says I told an untruth but I did not tell a lie. I did not know there was a difference.
I did not say the Minister told a lie. He told the House an untruth because he did not disclose the whole truth. To tell a lie is to say something that is deliberately false. The Minister did not tell the whole truth and, in so doing, he told the House an untruth.
This figure he is asking for now by way of reduced Estimate is in respect of the grant to Foras Tionscal. That enables the House now to discuss these grants and I want to discuss certain aspects of them. Since this debate was initiated, there has been a most disturbing situation in respect of one such grant. Let me say at once that I accept that you cannot possibly avoid having mistakes and I agree that, if you are going to work on the basis of always playing too safe, you will not get anywhere.
It seems to me that the grants made by Foras Tionscal fall into two different categories: one, the grant for the building and the other, the grant for plant and equipment. In relation to both, the same consideration applies, namely, that one should consider the amount of the grant that is being given in comparison with the amount of their own money the people themselves are putting up. In relation to a building, I do not take the view that there should be as high a proportion of the owner's capital put into it as there should be in relation to the plant and equipment. Any factory building that is put up will be there as a permanency and will be of some use to the community, even if the industry it was hoped to house in the building is unable to carry on. Irrespective of whether the factory may be too large or otherwise, it can be divided up, and there is always the possibility of using the building. As I understand it, the fact that the building remained was the governing factor in regard to the initial grants being given.
The position is not quite the same in relation to plant and equipment. Plant and equipment are virtually useful only for the industry or the particular purpose in mind at the time of initiation. It obviously, therefore, calls for a very much higher proportion of the owner's own money to ensure that the application has a substantial chance of success.
Having made it quite clear that I support the principle of taking a chance in relation to factory building, I cannot understand why more care is not taken in certain respects. How, for example, it is possible to give a grant for a factory building for a particular purpose and for the organisations giving the grant not to provide that town planning approval will be forthcoming before the grant is given, beats me. I should have thought the discharge of cyanide effluent was something that was obvious to everybody to be a dangerous thing. It seems to me therefore that when a grant is given, there should be proper inquiry about that aspect of the situation and that planning approval would be properly forthcoming before the grant is paid. After all, we all know the Minister for Local Government will not pay a housing grant until the applicant is able to produce his town planning certificate. If that is so, why is town planning approval not insisted on in all cases for a grant by Foras Tionscal? It seems to me an elementary precaution that should be taken and failure to do so shows a lack of planning somewhere.
We have never been told—I asked the Minister for information the other day by way of supplementary question but, understandably, he had not got it with him—in relation to these cases that have come under discussion what the proportion of private money to public money is. Perhaps it should be to the Minister for Finance as the shareholder and manager, so to speak, of Taiscí Stáit I should address inquiries in that respect? If the Minister for Industry and Commerce makes that point, there will be an opportunity on the Estimate for the Minister for Finance of dealing with it.
While there should be a forward policy, which must inevitably mean mistakes will be made from time to time and certain hopes will not come off, the benefit to be gained, if they do come off, is such that one has to adopt a wider policy. At the same time, there are certain things which should be done. One is to ensure that all proper precautions are taken to see that the planning is in order.
In this House we work on the principle that the Minister is responsible for the acts of his officials. That is the method on which parliamentary procedure works. It is perhaps bad luck on a new Minister going into a new Department that he was landed with a baby on his table, as he was in this revised Estimate, when he came in here on 6th May and told the House an untruth but not a lie. That is unfortunate. Certain of his colleagues who remained in the same offices and were carrying on in the same offices have not got that alibi. When the Minister for Finance was speaking in the Budget debate, he was very careful to defend himself. I make no charge against the Minister for Finance. It was the individual Ministers who were wrong. The Minister for Finance was right. He published the full truth in the Capital Budget tables. It would have been far better if the House when discussing the Estimates had also been told the truth and the whole truth at that time.
I spoke already on the previous occasion. I understand what we are discussing now is mainly a procedural dispute as to whether the Minister should be compelled to bring in a revised Estimate because of a change in the Budget figures. I do not wish to attribute to the Minister any ulterior motive in presenting the reduced sum now in the Estimate, a figure £500,000 less. I do not know what reasons to adduce for it. At the same time, the House expects the figures in Ministers' briefs to be true and correct in every sense. It is a pity this omission occurred because it gives rise to suspicion and very likely will bring Government Departments into disrepute in the minds of the people. Whether or not it was the intervention of a general election that gave rise to these changed figures, I do not know. Certainly the Minister ought to tell us what the real reasons were.
While I do not wish to repeat what I have already said on this Estimate, I have to express the concern of my Party that the Estimate is so considerably less than that originally introduced. At a time when we were supposed to be conforming to a programme of economic expansion, when we needed to accelerate the slow-moving wheels of industry and do something practical to increase agricultural output, at a time when we needed above all more employment opportunities for our people because redundancy was rearing its ugly head in so many important industries, one would have expected that the Estimate for this important Department on this occasion would have been increased out of all proportion.
We will have other opportunities of raising these matters. Suffice it to say that on the question of redundancy, the Labour Party have introduced a Bill which has been on the Order Paper for some time past. We are looking forward with enthusiasm to the Taoiseach and the Government giving permission for this long overdue measure to be introduced, a measure which will give some people security and some form of reasonable recompense to workers who are disemployed after long years of service in many sectors of our economy. These have had no gratitude shown to them by their employers and have been given no recompense of any kind. They have been thrown out on the unemployment scrapheap as discarded products of industry with no regard for their responsibilities to themselves, their wives or families. No gratitude is shown for their years of service well and truly given.
Again, I want to say to the Minister, who is new to his office in Industry and Commerce, and whom I came to know best as Minister for Education, that I do not wish, nor do my Party wish, to be associated with any insinuations of ulterior motive on his part on the subject of the omission which has taken place. However, we expect that he will give this House an explanation of what really transpired and we express the hope that such an omission will not occur again.
We discussed the very many important aspects of the Department of Industry and Commerce on the last occasion and I do not think the House itself was prepared for a rehash of all the salient points of view. There was, I feel, an understanding to facilitate the speedy dispatch of these Estimates and at the same time ensure reasonable scope for debate on them. It is not my intention to hold up the Estimate any further. I would again ask the Minister to give the House a more detailed explanation as to how it came about that there is now some £500,000 less provided in his Estimate than there was in the original one.
When the Minister came into the House with a revised Estimate, and it was regarded in all the circumstances that that situation should be challenged, I agree that it was appropriate that an explanation should be called for. It is distressing and worrying in the extreme that we could have, to use a vulgarism, attempts made by any Government Department to cook the books or seek to present to the country the appearance of an Estimate which was on the face of it much in excess of the amount it actually transpired to be.
The first thing I should like to say is that I think the Minister personally underestimates the great depth of friendship there is for him on these benches. During the retorts across the House, the Minister felt some aspersions were being cast on his personal character, but I think that tonight or tomorrow he will realise he was quite wrong.
Deputy Treacy is quite correct, and I agree with him, that these matters must be examined but he is quite wrong when he says this is just nothing more than a matter of procedure. When we come here to debate Estimates, we do so on the information given to us in the Minister's brief and on the amounts of money set out for the various items in the Book of Estimates. These are the first things a Deputy must look into and listen to if he is to contribute to the debate. If any one sentence in the Dáil Debates is wrong in its approach, because wrong information was given, then the whole structure of Parliament falls down. The position then is the Government become all powerful and Parliament is merely a rubber stamp.
I believe it is absolutely necessary that the rigid interpretation of relations between Parliament and the Government should be preserved, and particularly that the interpretation which says that those who are Ministers should bring here the figures for the exact amount of money which they propose to spend and, if they spend more they should bring in a Supplementary Estimate during the year for one which should be so and so, should be followed to the extreme.
As far as I can see, in relation to the revision of the Estimate, the things I said on the original debate, or the greater portion of that speech, still hold good. If there had been the reductions then that there are now, I would, perhaps, have been in the position I am now in, of saying that the employment and industry is not what they tried to tell us it was. In fact, there is some extensive slowing down. There is some extension of a deflationary aspect in the Estimate for Industry and Commerce which has been introduced by the machinations of the Budget, after the debate.
I will introduce another aspect of this matter by saying that I think the Government never intended the Estimate for the Department of Industry and Commerce to come before this House on the date on which it did. I believe, in certain circumstances, the Minister for Agriculture is guilty that it came before the House on that date. There are times when it suits to be a slick chick and there are times when the slicker you are the more you catch yourself out. I believe the behaviour of the Minister for Agriculture, in relation to his Estimate, which is something we cannot debate at this stage, resulted in the Minister for Industry and Commerce coming before the House and finding himself in this embarrassing position. This is a case where the slick chick not only catches himself out but his friends as well.
We on this side of the House are quite adamant, whatever personal friendly feelings we have for any individual Minister, that his business in this House will be examined clinically and in every detail. That is not only our prerogative but our duty. I believe the Minister will probably agree with me when he thinks over this matter this evening or tomorrow morning. It is almost impertinent to suggest that the Minister is responsible not only to us but to the people who elected us. He is also responsible to the people of Ireland as well as to his colleagues and to the Dáil.
As far as I am concerned, with the exception that there seems to be a slowing down in capital expenditure, the remarks I made previously still hold good. It seems that this slowing down will be extended in the next year and if that happens, there will be a lessening of grants. I hope there will be no lessening of these grants and that this is the last occasion on which we will have remarks across the floor of the House about Ministers bringing in Estimates which, in fact, were not correct.
(South Tipperary): Deputy Sweetman dealt with one problem, perhaps a rather big one, the question of grants. He adverted to some recent misfortunes which we have been sustaining in respect of one of our industrial undertakings, a certain industrial undertaking to which a grant of £750,000 was made. I appreciate that in any industrial development venture there is always a calculated risk but it is reasonable to press upon the Minister the importance of trying to secure that the risk be kept as small as possible. I understand, for instance, that in the case of any grant over £250,000 special arrangements are made with the recipients. I should like to know if these special arrangements are arrived at individually in each case or on general terms. I should like also to have a reassurance that, when special large grants are given, rigorous investigation is undertaken to try to foresee if the issue of the grants is a justifiable venture.
I should like to know what advisory services Foras Tionscal have available to them outside their own resources. I am sure that in matters of very large capital grants it would be quite possible to get first-class industrial brokers, industrial advisory companies, in Great Britain, the Continent and elsewhere and I should like to know if we have listed any such bodies in our advisory services. I do not think the entire responsibility should be thrown upon the limited resources of Foras Tionscal in the matter of a very large grant and if they require advisory services outside their own offices I should like to know if these services are available to them and if they are ready to participate.
I asked the Minister's predecessor on one occasion to give us a list of industries which received grants or loans from the State and subsequently shut down. I was told in reply to my parliamentary question that this information was not available. I suppose it is bad propaganda to list one's mistakes. However, we have a function here to be the watchdogs of the taxpayers' money and when we ask a question to find out how many fly-by-night gentlemen get money and then disappear we are entitled to get the round figure.
The matter about which I primarily rose to speak is partly local and partly of a general nature. On 25th May, 1965, I put down this parliamentary question:
To ask the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he is in a position to make a statement regarding the Cahir Flour Mill, County Tipperary; whether it is about to change hands involving considerable redundancy owing to a projected close down by the flour milling section of the factory; and if he has any proposals to make on the employment situation which may arise.
The Minister replied as follows:
I am not aware that the Cahir Flour Mill is about to change hands.
It is possible, however, that the flour mill may close under the rationalisation scheme which was introduced by the Irish Flour Millers' Association to deal with the longstanding problem of excess capacity in the industry. The Deputy will appreciate that, while I have certain statutory functions in relation to the flour milling industry, I am not in a position to require mills to remain in operation.
The flour mill in Cahir is partly a flour mill. It is also, I understand, classified as a Grade A mill and gives employment I am told to about 90 or 100 persons. It has been represented to me that a change-over will involve the redundancy of half or more, probably two-thirds, of the employees and that the remaining one-third will be down-graded. By that I mean that at the present time they are classified as flour mills but, under the new arrangement, they will be classified as compounding mills which means, I am told, lower wages and longer hours. The position of the workers will adversely be affected but the position of those who will lose their employment will be very grave, indeed. They feel there is nothing open to them except the emigrant ship. The town of Cahir is like any small Irish town. There is no alternative employment that I know of locally and, therefore, from the point of view of these people, from a humanitarian point of view, it is a grave problem, indeed.
Take a man about 45 or 50 years and ask him to emigrate with his family and start into some new form of employment. Deputies will appreciate that it is almost an impossible task. In many cases, it will mean the breaking-up of homes. I can appreciate the Minister's attitude in this matter up to a certain point. We hear these words "rationalisation", "integration", "adaptation", "based upon excess capacity". They are applied now to many of our industries and, with a view to efficiency and up to a point, I say it is a defensible situation. But a stage can be reached and I fear is being reached in this particular industry where we pass what might be called reasonable rationalisation, reasonable integration, into the more questionable and dangerous field of monopoly.
The Irish Flour Millers' Association have been given power, apparently unfettered, to proceed with this process of integration which can only culminate in a monopoly by Rank and Odlum. Six flour mills closed down two or three years ago and in Clare one mill closed down recently. I would ask the Minister to tell the House at what stage he intervenes in a process of this nature and what powers of interference he has. I understand that a grant was given a few years ago to this particular mill. This brings me back again to the question of grants. Is sufficient thought given to the issue of grants from the point of view of what may happen in the future? Will this House, through Foras Tionscal, give a grant to a company only to find it taken over in a year or two in the form of a take-over bid, with the industry to which the grant was given being closed down in the interests, we are told, of rationalisation and integration?
I, therefore, make the plea to the Minister that there is a very grave danger in this of a rush towards making ourselves competitive for the Common Market and a rush towards adaptation and rationalisation, and of these practices being used as a cover to establish monopoly conditions. I should like the Minister, if he can, to give me greater assurance than he gave me in reply to a parliamentary question on this, and I should like to know if in point of fact he will be prepared to receive a deputation from those workers whose employment is now so seriously threatened.
I was very disappointed today when I heard the reply on the question of redundancy pay and re-training facilities. The Parliamentary Secretary told us that a national scheme for redundancy compensation and re-training facilities was not for those, mind you, with suitable aptitude. Apparently it was not to be universal, and the scheme was not yet in operation except in so far as what might be there on a voluntary basis.
We are talking about going into the EEC since I came into the Dáil in 1961 and we are talking about adaptation procedures and we have CIO reports. These adaptation councils have been in operation for the past few years. Any form of adaptation or integration of industrial efforts will in itself carry redundancy. Surely we, pari passu with these adaptation schemes being set up, will have a scheme for redundancy and re-training established practically simultaneously. Now, after two years we were told in the House today that no national scheme has as yet been set up. Probably tomorrow or afterwards, or after I have spoken and after we on this side of the House have kicked up a row, some activity will be shown by the Government as regards a scheme for redundancy compensation and re-training facilities. I think it is a very negligent attitude on the part of the Government to proceed willynilly to a nation-wide industrial integration and at the same time make no provision simultaneously for the establishment of a national scheme for redundancy compensation and re-training facilities.
I do not say that these schemes should be established on the same day but I do say that a time lag of two to three years between the time we started preparing for the Common Market and May 1965 is quite indefensible and shows complete negligence on the part of the Government in this regard.
This is a problem which has arisen in Cahir and in other industries elsewhere and a problem which will arise in other industries in the future. That is inevitable. I am not being over pessimistic, but just being realistic. Now, I would urge upon the Minister to use his good offices to see that this national scheme for redundancy compensation and re-training is set up immediately. That is the only answer I can give to people who come to me and ask me what I can do for them. It is pointless for me to produce this hazy, factitious answer which the Minister provided in reply to a parliamentary question.
What use is that for a man who wonders where he will get a few pounds to buy the necessaries of life? I would ask the Minister, therefore, to state specifically in his reply at what stage he will interfere, or does he intend to interfere, or what interference is he capable of executing, as regards the comprehensive integration of the flour milling industry. Even allowing for a fall in the consumption of bread, even allowing for a fall in the amount of flour produced, surely there is some stage at which the Minister will intervene, rather than allow the flour milling industry and the baking industry to fall into the hands of a single monopoly. I do not think that ever can be good. I do not think it is safe and if it is allowed to progress, as I fear it will, we will, perhaps, one day regret it.
I would ask the Minister to state in his reply whether he would see a deputation from the workers at Cahir, if they wish to come and see him.
I feel I have one problem to deal with, if it can be done and that is, the question of an attempt by the Government to mislead the House. I have already explained that the Minister for Finance told the House that what happened this year is something which could happen any year in which Estimates are made early with a closer Estimate made possibly as a result of delayed publication of certain Government statutory documents. These closer Estimates were given this year.
Perhaps I took Deputy Sweetman too seriously. He seems to separate me from the Government indicating that I was trying to hide something which the Minister for Finance had fully exposed and completely itemised. The Government do not work in sections. The Estimates were originally published by the Minister for Finance early in the year. The Budget came later and my Estimate draft was prepared on the basis of the first Estimate. A revision of the Estimate came about and was announced by the Minister in volume 215, No. 13 of the Official Report for Thursday, 20th May, 1965. I quote, if I may repeat, what the Minister said at column 1833:
To prove that there was no attempt at non-disclosure of any reductions, the figures to which I refer were published in the "Capital Budget" which accompanied the pre-budgetary documents generally issued. At page 4, paragraph 7, I stated clearly:
Since the Estimates Volume was published, the actual detailed figures for last year's capital expenditure became available and it was possible, in the light of these figures and other up-to-date information, to arrive at closer estimates of the amounts needed to carry out this year's programme. The relevant amendments of the figures published in the Volume are indicated in Table 6 which sets out the Voted Capital Services in detail.
There is a detailed statement of the reductions provided for in Table
At column 1834 he also said:
There was no attempt at non-disclosure by me. It was all fully set out in the "Capital Budget"— not only that but it was fully itemised as well.
How the House could feel that one Minister was speaking about publishing and itemising changes and, at the same time, feel that another Minister was hiding all these things that were spoken about, published and itemised, I cannot see. I should certainly like to point out that this was not an exercise in window-dressing. It was a revised Estimate based on later information. I should also like to say to the House that if it turns out that the expenditure requirements of Foras Tionscal within this year are greater than anticipated at present, I will ask the House for further sums by way of Supplementary Estimate. Indeed, I have taken this first opportunity of introducing the revised Estimate to the House for discussion. It will be the pleasure of individual Deputies to decide whether or not there has been an attempt to mislead them.
Would the Minister like to indicate whether the revision had taken place before or after 6th May?
Quite honestly, I have not got the dates in my mind, but there was certainly no attempt to mislead. If there had been an attempt to mislead, there would have been a much better combined effort. Another Minister would not be speaking about it, publishing and itemising it, if I were trying to hide it. That would be very bad team work which you would not get from a single Party Government.
Grants paid to Foras Tionscal last year amounted to £3¼ million. The revised estimate for 1965/66 makes an additional £¼ million available, as compared with the actual expenditure in the previous year. It is felt at the moment in the light of last year's expenditure that this revised provision is adequate. As I say, it may be necessary for me to come back and seek further money later in the year, and certainly if Foras Tionscal need further finance, I will be back to ask the House for it.
This has happened in other years. I do not think there is any substantial difference between this and the ordinary allowance for over-estimation. In view of the fact that there has been no attempt at non-disclosure as explained by another Minister, I regard it—and I think Deputies will accept it—as a technicality that a revised Estimate has to be introduced. There is no slowing down in the tempo of grant sanctioning. Sanction has not been reduced and the Estimate now before the House is one relating to the amount of cash that will be taken up against grants approved.
About a fortnight ago, I dealt with some points in terms of industrial development. I think I said the whole basis of industrial development, and the success of our manufacturing industries and of our marketing drives, was to give employment at home for our people. I should like to start now by saying that industrial expansion, expansion of employment and increased exports, are not blessings that descend miraculously from the sky, nor can we afford to regard them as a question of being lucky. As I said on the last occasion, there is a great deal to be done by our industrialists and the Government have a very important part to play.
Perhaps the first question I should now answer relates to grants given by Foras Tionscal to private enterprise setting up industry, because that matter was raised a few times. Some Deputies raised the point that foreign capital was accepted uncritically, and that foreign industrialists were encouraged to do work for which Irish capital was available. I explained to the House before that all industrial proposals from foreigners, and from everyone, are very carefully examined by Foras Tionscal and the IDA. If an Irish interest with capital is anxious to engage in industry, the same grants are available as are available to foreigners.
It is only proper to say that the Irish interest gets more attention from Foras Tionscal.
I was answering the point raised by Deputies who felt it does not.
I agree with the Minister, and when I agree with him, I am not ashamed to say so.
What happened to the Deputy?
Deputy Corry should wait for the debate on Cork. He was having his fun in that debate.
The Minister.
The Deputy suggested that there should be a review of grant-aided industries, and since bouquets are being passed across the House, I agree with him, too. In 1961, it was my predecessor's intention that there should be a survey of the Industrial Grants Acts and it was his intention that Foras Tionscal would make a review of the grant-aided industries. However, in that year the possibility of our entrance into the European Economic Community became imminent, and Foras Tionscal were very busy looking for schemes for enlargement and adaptation grants to assist industry to meet the competition of free trade. The new work placed a heavy strain on the staff, and this survey was placed in abeyance. I want to say now that the survey will be done. It will be initiated at the end of this year, and it will be well worth while doing it.
I said on the last occasion that ordinary competition and the movement of markets make it very difficult for any firm to predict its future. Indeed, in other countries, too, many large firms have to face sudden changes in their markets which make it difficult for them to survive. So far as they could, the Government have been helping our industries. They have been encouraging the formation, within separate industries or sectors, of adaptation associations and councils, and giving adaptation grants. I am sure the House will be interested to know that yesterday a new adaptation council was formed at a meeting held in the Department of Industry and Commerce in the fruit and vegetable processing industry. This included representatives from both the public and private sectors of industry and it was agreed that an adaptation council would be established.
Deputy Crowley suggested that the grants available for adaptation would be far more widely used if parties were aware of their existence. Much has been done already by the CIO in this respect. They issued a publication Preparations for Conditions of Freer Trade, and in that were included details of special loans and adaptation grants. The Industrial Reorganisation Branch of the Department of Industry and Commerce prepared a booklet, A Guide to Principal Forms of State Aid and Services for Irish Industry, which gave information on all sources of aid for industry, giving names, addresses, telephone numbers of the various organisations, making it easier to facilitate contact.
This booklet was issued to 3,500 firms and subsequently 2,500 others received it through contact with the Industrial Reorganisation Branch. There has been a continued demand for this guide and a revised and up-to-date edition will issue shortly. Outside interests took up this matter and one of the leading banks issued a brochure modelled on it. An Foras Tionscal and the Industrial Credit Company issued leaflets about grants and loans and their availability. The facilities have been mentioned regularly by members of the Government in public statements. The Industrial Reorganisation Branch are continuing to emphasise the importance of the question.
The picture painted of the use being made of these grants is not as bad as Deputies thought. The number of grants and loans approved represent a capital expenditure of just £28 million. In addition, applications for these grants and loans under examination at the moment represent a further £6 million. As measured by applications for adaptation grants and loans from the 26 industries surveyed by the CIO, almost 50 per cent have re-equipped themselves. The picture, of course, varies from one industry to another. In some it is as high as 90 per cent and in others as low as 20 per cent or less. Apart from a few black spots, the overall picture is one of widespread capital investment which should leave industry in a strong position, as far as the economics of production are concerned, when the grants cease in March of 1966. In the meantime, it is intended to draw public attention to the industries which have been lagging behind in this respect.
A big number of individual questions by Deputies would, perhaps, take a long time to answer but the question of what the regulations are under which grants are made I can deal with. A firm applying for a special grant should be able to establish that it would be adversely affected by freer trade and that the proposed adaptation measures would enable it to withstand the competition freer trade would entail. There have not been any grants for bakeries. Presumably it is not felt they would be adversely affected by freer trade.
I understood the position in regard to bakeries was that An Foras Tionscal had indicated that where bakeries were near the border they could not be expected to survive in an atmosphere of freer trade as easily as others.
That is a further point to be established by a firm seeking a grant. The first point is that a firm would be adversely affected and the second is that the adaptation measures they proposed with the help of the grant would enable them to survive. Absence of one of these would rule out a grant.
Will the Minister be prepared to consider applications from bakeries for grants? My information is that bakeries were not entitled to grants.
It would be a matter for An Foras Tionscal to decide that. They certainly have not made any such grants.
They have refused them.
Probably because they felt one or other of the two rules was not there.
I make this point in the most serious way. I cite the case of a bakery employing 200 workers who have been told that in conditions of freer trade they could not survive if they sold bread made from flour from different sources across the border. They were told that for that reason they would not get a grant. Consider the position of the employees there. I am asking the Minister to look at it very seriously.
I have looked at it. A Cheann Comhairle, I do not think we should have this up and down business. Deputy O'Leary suggested—I do not think he meant to make an assertion—that the trade union advisory councils should not have any obstacles put in their way in the matter of receiving full information. I have been unable to unearth any instances where obstacles have been put in the way of trade union advisory bodies. It may be that contact between adaptation councils and these bodies could be closer. Some of the councils are not long established and have been busy within themselves working out their programmes and mode of action. My Department encourage contact between the trade union advisory bodies and the adaptation councils and have advised the councils of the necessity for this.
The Committee on Industrial Organisation, in dealing with the creation of adaptation councils, stated it would be essential that the councils would consult with the trade unions in matters of training of personnel and of redundancy. They recommended the union bodies should be consulted. I do not think Deputy O'Leary meant to assert that there were, in fact, obstacles put in the way of the trade unions but rather that he hoped there would be better co-operation.
Having geared themselves for the difficulties of freer trade, our industrialists will have to find markets. It is a matter of producing an article of good quality at the cheapest possible price and having it delivered. Deputies spoke about the prospects of wider markets. I think there have been a fair number of statements from other members of the Government, from the Taoiseach in particular, on the question of our external trading arrangements. Our relations with the UN Conference on Trade Development was raised and the Minister for External Affairs dealt with it on his Estimate. Some Deputies spoke of industrial relations.
Before passing from grants, would the Minister say why An Foras Tionscal do not insist on town planning permission as do the local authorities?
They consult with local authorities but the extent to which they can insist——
The Minister for Local Government will not give a housing grant unless town planning permission has been received.
But the authority for town planning is a matter for the local authority and not for Foras Tionscal.
Foras Tionscal could lay that down as a condition. It seems somebody fell down very badly on the planning for the disposal of the cyanide effluent at Clondalkin. It should have been foreseen by somebody.
Somebody fell down very badly in two speeches.
Order; the Minister concluding.
Concluding the second time under great difficulty. I should tell the House I am very conscious of the need for an overhaul, and the possible modernisation, where necessary, of our industrial relations machinery. I have been talking about export markets and of our industries competing with the developed industry of other countries. Time and again stress has been laid on the importance of these export markets for the future of this country. This will affect the whole industrial and social life of our country. In developing these markets, we are up against the keenest of competitors and the time has come to ask ourselves honestly whether we can afford to carry a severe handicap in the form of haphazard wage negotiations accompanied by disruptive strikes or threats of strikes. We as a community must expect problems of industrial relations to become wider in extent and more varied in character and as a community we must find a solution to these problems or as a community we will suffer.
An incomes policy perhaps.
The National Wage Agreement of 1964 gave some promise of orderly progress and we should all be not alone prepared but anxious to go a long way in our efforts to maintain that progress. Industrial relations are complex and I am sure all Deputies would agree that in launching into a study of the field, and in our efforts to bring about peaceful progress in it, we should start our efforts by consulting both sides of industry. My predecessor took the initiative here and met the representatives of employers and workers who are now considering outline proposals which he put to them. Since I took up office, I have indicated my anxiety for an early resumption of these discussions. It is not necessary for me to say that the existence of industrial relations machinery is not in itself a guarantee of stable industrial peace; we will have to look for a willingness on the part of everybody concerned to use that machinery with patience and goodwill and to work for the common good rather than for sectional interests.
This question of industrial relations is quite distinct from the question of a manpower policy. The question of manpower is one of the availability of a pool of workers and the availability of posts and jobs for these workers. It is a matter of skilled workers of various types and therefore basically it will have to be a matter of forecasting the availability of labour and the needs of our industries for the various types of skilled or unskilled labour. Training for these special skills for industry is required and also a policy will be required in relation to the redundancy which is bound to occur in parts of the structure of employment and redundancy will have to be met by replacement which might in turn often require retraining where the worker has the aptitude. It will require also redundancy payment. This, as I say, is a problem all in itself. It requires urgent study and in fact my predecessor had already prepared the draft heads of a Bill to deal with the new concept of industrial training. It is hoped to bring that Bill before the House at the earliest possible date. In the meantime, we have made arrangements for the Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Seán Flanagan, to give special attention to this matter of manpower.
The reference I made in introducing the first Estimate for this year was intended not as a policy but rather as an indication to workers that the human problems were first in our minds. It is not easy, for instance, to get the staff of the forecasting team, which is a highly specialised staff. It is not easy to forecast. That has been found in other countries. We are dealing with a new problem and other countries are dealing with it as a new problem. It is an urgent problem but it cannot be dealt with quickly but it will be dealt with as energetically as possible. As I said, my anxiety when introducing the Estimate was to allay any fears in the minds of workers who may feel themselves vulnerable in the period of changing patterns of employment which must arise in the future. They have already arisen, as they must, as a normal part of the life of any industrial country, but they will arise in the future. The attitude to manpower, while we set out to deal with the human problems first, will be that there will be more jobs available than will be extinguished and our problem will be to train to the necessary skill and to retrain people with the necessary skill to fulfil the needs of industry and get adequate employment.
Could the Minister say whether Foras Tionscal work to a budget or if their attitude to a particular problem is influenced by the amount of money available?
You cannot predict what they will want. That is my problem today.
They do not have regard to what money is provided?
It may be that I will have to come back to ask for the money which I had asked for in the first Estimate but not in this one.
Has the Minister finished on the Estimate?
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
The Dáil adjourned at 5 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 1st June, 1965.