The Minister says that since the passing of the Gaeltacht Industries (Amendment) Act, 1965, Gaeltarra Éireann is the principal instrument in the Department of economic activities of an industrial character in all Gaeltacht areas. We are setting out to do two things here and we should not lose sight of that fact. It is wrong to emphasise the development of economic activities. There is a social aspect to this, too. We are trying to keep the people in the west of Ireland. We are trying to keep the west from being depopulated and to keep some sort of economic activity there. We are also trying to use it as an instrument for preserving and promoting the Irish language. On that account, I do not think it should be a requirement that these industries should necessarily be economic, certainly at the outset and for some time after they have been developed.
There is extreme difficulty, in my view, in getting many industrialists to go to the remoter parts of this country because of a large number of considerations. The technical men and the people at management level in the industries, come, in the main, from countries where they were living in industrial areas and they refuse to go to the remoter areas of the west of Ireland. As well as that, I think the only type of industry that could be established there, at the outset, is one that could give employment to a small number of people. No industry requiring a large number of people to be present all day and every day could hope to survive in the west because there is no such thing as a large pool of labour available in any area there. It would mean travelling very long distances in order to keep an industry going, and with bad weather and other considerations, it would not be possible for an industry requiring a large labour force to be set up in the west of Ireland. For that reason, we should at all times try to develop small specialised industries there. These are the types of industries which I think have not received very much consideration from the Industrial Development Authority.
Since Gaeltarra Éireann have been brought into this, I would hope they would act in a different sort of way and make a different approach to this problem in their efforts to establish industry. I agree that unless we set up some sort of economic activity whereby the people in these areas will get a reasonable living, we shall arrive at a point where we shall have no native speakers. There could be no more effective instrument for the preservation of the language—and we have it in those areas—than the setting up of some sort of economic activity and employment opportunity for the people there.