Deputy Crotty has given notice that he wished to raise the matter of the anthracite industry on the Adjournment.
Adjournment Debate. - Anthracite Industry.
I put down four questions last week, two to the Minister for Transport and Power and two to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, and apparently all four were switched to the Minister for Industry and Commerce. When they were asked in the Dáil, the Minister for Transport and Power said he did not know what I was talking about, that he did not know what reports I had in mind.
When the Minister for Industry and Commerce was concluding the debate on his Estimate, I asked whether he had any statement to make on the anthracite industry and he said he was awaiting reports and that when these came in, he would make a statement. Apparently the Minister for Transport and Power feels that the whole trouble in the anthracite industry at present, and for quite a while, has been marketing, and when there is a stock built up, he does, and has been doing, his best to relieve the position and has made arrangements for the relief of the present position. I want him to go a little further.
The relief of a stock crisis is the relief of a temporary position. We had a crisis this time 12 months in the Castlecomer mines which was also relieved by the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, but the people in Castlecomer, the workers employed there and their dependants are anxious to have the industry put on a proper basis. Apparently, the Minister for Transport and Power thinks that by relieving the marketing position, the industry is put on an even keel again, but that is just like stopping a hole in the ship when it appears and not bothering about it until another hole appears. The people feel they will not have the workers there without some firm foundation for their employment which will continue for generations to come as it has done in the past. It is more than a question of marketing.
I also asked the Minister if there were any prospects of, or if he had asked if the ESB had plans for, an electricity generating station to be set up on the Leinster coalfield. When I pressed him by supplementary questions, he said he would look into the matter or ask the ESB to do so. Then he said that an electricity station would take five years and why trouble about anything in five years' time, that it was the immediate position we were dealing with. The immediate position has been rectified and it is most necessary to trouble about what will happen in five years' time. The people have been working there for many generations and I hope will continue to work there for many more. The Minister then promised in a very half-hearted way that he would look into the possibility of planning an electricity generating station. It is most important that the mines there should be developed for emergency purposes.
There are three mines closed down and they have been closed down for 12 months. I was at a meeting in Doonane attended by all the local Deputies and Deputies from Laois-Offaly——
All those who were invited.
The Parliamentary Secretary's signature was required.
No, I got the invitation too late for the meeting.
I seem to remember somebody apologised for the Parliamentary Secretary's inability to attend owing to his new duties. Everybody accepted that. The meeting was attended by Deputies and various clergy from——
It was a great demonstration of your own.
It was not a demonstration. It was organised by the local parish priest. It was, if you like, a demonstration of people. There are three mines already closed there and we want to bring that home to the Government. That was the purpose of the meeting.
I also asked the Minister for Transport and Power if there was a possibility of using anthracite duff as a basis for smokeless fuel and again I got a half-hearted reply saying that investigations were being made but that the Minister did not think there was much hope in that direction either. It appears there is not much hope anywhere for an industry like this. I understand the smokeless fuel firms in Britain are doing quite well and I do not see, if that is the case there, that our workers are not just as good. I think that should be considered. I got a poor answer from the Minister to the effect that they might look into it.
A survey of the Leinster coalfield was made at a cost of £84,000 and the resources of anthracite there have been proved. Is there any reason why we should not try to develop these resources to the fullest extent and provide good employment in the area? For the past three days, we have had a long discussion on the Taoiseach's Estimate and other matters and he said we were importing too many consumer goods. Here we have consumer goods ready for use in the form of anthracite, but we are importing anthracite. Apart from that, we should plan for more use of anthracite in generating stations and in other ways. After the expensive survey and when we have proved resources available, it would be a pity not to go ahead. It creates difficulty when responsibility for a particular matter is divided between two Ministries, as happened the other day when the Minister for Transport and Power was answering the questions. You may fall between two stools as a result of this division. The people are suffering from the effects of this.
I should like to know what reports the Minister has got on the Castlecomer mines, which can employ between 400 and 500 people. This is probably the most thickly populated part of Kilkenny and the surrounding counties and the people are anxious to get continuous and permanent employment. We have £1 million invested in the Potez factory which, practically speaking, has not been opened yet. We have another £400,000 invested in GEC in Dundalk which is closed. I have no objection to investments because if you do not gamble in these matters, you will have no industries, but the point I want to make is that if the Government are prepared to invest in foreign firms such as these, why not put some capital into our own resources and develop these first and bring in the foreign firms afterwards? We are now going into recess for three or four months and I appeal to the Minister to take some very definite steps during that time to develop these mines.
I should like to join with Deputy Crotty in urging on the Minister the necessity for action in this matter and I should like to congratulate Deputy Crotty on raising this question. It is true that a number of the Deputies from Carlow-Kilkenny and Laois-Offaly were invited with the parish priest of Doonane and the parish priest of Castlecomer to meet in Doonane and discuss the problem on the spot. There was a very fine response from Deputies from the two constituencies. Deputy Crotty has spoken in relation to the possible effect on Castlecomer and the threat to the coalmines in that area. I am concerned as a Deputy from Laois-Offaly with the fact that three coalmines have now closed down and this has had an effect on the livelihood of up to 1,000 people. It is a densely populated part of my constituency and of the county of Laois and needless to say, the effect has been very bad on many people and they are looking for some glimmer of hope.
I have never understood why there has not been an adequate planned development of low grade coal deposits in this country. I am told, and the Minister can say whether this is accurate or not, that part of the problem facing our coalfields and coalmines at the moment is a marketing problem and due in no small measure to the continued preference for, and therefore the continued importation of Welsh anthracite. I should like to know why we do not stop these imports. It is a simple and obvious suggestion, and of course when one makes an obvious suggestion, it always appears that there are many reasons why it could not be done. One reason no doubt the Minister would say is the existing trade agreement with Britain. However, there is a saver in that agreement in relation to our own resources, if the result of continued imports is likely to cause unemployment. That is what is happening. The British were not very choosey about what they did in relation to their recent import levies on all the goods we export to them, when they decided to take action in the interests of their economy.
It is a small thing, a humble thing, but there are up to 1,000 people in my constituency, poor people living a marginal existence whose only known way of livelihood is gone, or is going, or is threatened. They can only hope to leave the country and seek employment abroad if the threat develops and affects the Leinster coalmines. Then it will be a very serious matter. The coal is there, the deposits are there, and we know that the market exists in this country. We had all this talk about buying Irish in the debate we have just concluded and there was what was meant to be a bugle call rally by the Taoiseach—let us get up and buy Irish. Here is one Irish industry with the deposits, here is the coal, here is the market and here are the hands willing to work it, and surely in these circumstances it is the height of folly if the Minister cannot give some indication that this challenge is going to be met and something worthwhile done for the poor people there who have no other hope.
I would urge the Minister to give us some indication that he is going to take action in this matter. Deputy Crotty was quite right in underlining what appears to us, and to the people in the locality, to be a weakness in the present situation, that they do not know whom to turn to. They are sent from Billy to Jack and do not know whether they are to go to the Minister for Transport and Power or to the Minister for Industry and Commerce. The plain fact is that between these two Ministries this industry is falling into neglect. Three mines have been closed and others are threatened, and there does not appear to be any hope in the locality. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance is perhaps aware that in desperation the local people sought emergency relief, some form of a grant to provide employment. There were high hopes at the meeting in Doonane that the Parliamentary Secretary might have been there.
Mr. Gibbons
I could have been.
Why did you not ask him?
It was the local priest who issued the invitations.
Mr. Gibbons
When? At what time? I was invited but not in time.
An apology was made for the Parliamentary Secretary's non-attendance. However, that is by the way. Here is a situation that requires the co-operation of all Deputies in relation to the Minister or Ministers concerned. We want to see something done to meet this problem and to see that some sort of effort is made to relieve a genuine local anxiety and a genuine local problem.
I should like to support the two previous speakers. During the past few days we have heard the call to support Irish industry and to buy Irish and this is one way in which the Government can prove their sincerity, by doing something about the Leinster coalfields. I was at the meeting in Doonane and I was grieved at the number of workers who were at that meeting, workers who have spent their lives in the coalmining industry. Three mines have been closed and the mine in Castlecomer has been closed at intervals during the past 12 months and while it is working at the moment, what the possibilities are for the future I do not know. One can imagine the plight of these people who are now unemployed and left, with their families, with practically no income. If something is not done quickly by whatever Department is responsible, all that is left to them is the emigrant ship.
I should like to appeal to the Minister to do something urgently and if the report is not ready, not to wait until next October when the Dáil will be re-assembling after the Recess. I would appeal to him to do something in the interests of this industry, and of these workers, and to look at the problem in the same light as Deputies from Carlow-Kilkenny and Laois-Offaly look at it.
I should assure Deputies, first of all, that there is not any diffusion of responsibility interfering with Government activity on behalf of the coalmines. The two Ministers and the two Ministries have been in constant consultation since the very beginning of these problems and the officers of both Departments have been co-operating together in seeking ways to find outlets, markets and solutions for the other problems arising, so there is no question of a division of responsibilities reducing the activities of Government Departments. At the end of the debate on my Estimate, Deputy Crotty asked me this question and I explained that the general problem for anthracite producers was mainly a marketing one, that they were producing what they could not sell. I said that one mine, even if the marketing problems were solved, had different problems on which I was awaiting a report.
In order not to continue the idea of departmental division of responsibility, I should like to say in relation to the same problem of marketing that, in consultation, both Departments have been seeking solutions. The answer given by the Minister for Transport and Power represents the answer the Deputy would have got from me had I taken the question—that the Minister for Transport and Power has obtained the services of a firm of consultants to examine the whole question of marketing and sales of Irish anthracite. The Minister reminded the Deputy that the problem was that anthracite was being replaced as a fuel by other types of fuel.
From earlier replies, the Deputies will be aware that imports of anthracite have not increased in recent years. The Minister for Transport and Power told the House that we have had agreed voluntary reductions in imports of English anthracite and that this should help the sale of Irish anthracite to a great extent.
It is a very complicated problem and it is under examination. In the meantime, every possible way to find a market for the products of the Leinster coalmines is being examined and followed. The particular problem of Castlecomer, which would not be solved by having a market for its product, is also a difficult one. It is the problem of the availability of coal in commercially workable seams and that is quite a distance from what any Government Department could be expected to solve. If you have not commercially workable seams, no amount of Government action will create them.
As the Deputy has said, in 1963 my predecessor in the Department of Industry and Commerce was contacted by representatives of the community in Castlecomer and by the management of the Castlecomer collieries. The collieries were losing money and a close-down was then imminent. The Government were very concerned at the threat to employment and the social problems that would follow, and so that the mine might continue in operation while its viability was being examined —its viability was in question at the time—assistance was given to the company to obtain accommodation from their bankers. This assistance, and the accommodation the company got from their bankers, enabled them to continue operations. By developing fresh workings, they hoped to increase output. All those measures did not succeed.
They did not find enough coal?
They did not. The next step taken was to try to appraise the prospects of development in the future and, to guide them in this, the company engaged the services of a firm of international experts who made an examination. Their report, which I told the Deputy I was awaiting, on the prospects of the Castlecomer collieries having enough workable seams to make it possible to continue it, was received recently and a copy was made available to me and is now being examined in the Department.
That is the report I was inquiring about.
I am still limited in what I can say in regard to it. The report is under examination but a first reading of it suggests that the outlook for the mine is bad. It is quite clear there is no prospect of this mine being worked on an economic or commercial basis. The Government and Deputies are concerned about the fate of the miners and the effects on the Castlecomer community. Both are matters of grave concern to me and the Government. Everything I can do to find alternative employment, to promote other measures for the miners, will be done.
I can say now that the prospects of alternative employment for the miners is good—more immediate and better than the prospects of industry for the town. The promotion and placing of industries is a very difficult problem, but, as I say, anything I or my Department can do will be done. In the meantime, the prospects for the continued employment of the miners is good. I have gone just as far as I can. The developments will become obvious to the Deputy.
The Dáil adjourned at 5.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 20th July, 1965.