Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 5 May 1966

Vol. 222 No. 8

Committee on Finance. - Vote 40—Industry and Commerce (resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That a sum not exceeding £8,966,700 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1967, 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.

——(Minister for Industry and Commerce).

Mr. Dillon

When I moved to report progress last night, I was discussing the merits of profits. I asked whether this House had not reached a stage when we ought to ask ourselves in what direction we desired to travel—was it our aim to establish a socialist State or did we believe in free institutions, free enterprise, the profit motive and the standard of living and of social services which I suggest can only be sustained by a free society operating the system of free enterprise? I asked the House to bear in mind that we have evidence before our eyes that those countries that have elected for a socialist system of government have not produced, not succeeded in producing, the Utopia they confidently forecast.

Without going into the ideological foundations of Russia or China, at least we can say that Russia has given 40 years' full scope to a full-blown socialist economy and, dwelling exclusively for the moment on the economic consequences of that, we have the evidence before our eyes that after 40 years' operation of that system in an area which must be one of the richest in the world, stretching from the borders of Poland to Vladivostok, the people of Russia would be hungry today but for the fact that they can depend on the resources of the great free enterprise nations of the world— Australia, Canada and, indirectly, the United States—to provide them with the very food to feed their people which they have been unable to produce themselves.

I believe in a system based on free enterprise in which the profit motive is not regarded as disreputable, because I believe that without the profit motive, decent employment cannot be provided, decent social services cannot be provided and individual liberty, in the last analysis, cannot be preserved. I do not want a system in which we all become servants of the State and I think the time has come when we ought to ask ourselves are we moving in that general direction here. Some of our colleagues hopefully point to what they describe as socialist economies in Europe and say that they have worked successfully without destroying individual liberty and without precipitating a general lowering of the standard of living. One of their principal object lessons is Sweden. Sweden has called itself a socialist democracy for 30 years but there is no country in the world in which capitalism and the profit motive are more ardently promoted and protected than in Sweden.

Of course it is true to say that our real difficulty is to learn to ask ourselves what do we mean by socialism. It is a word that has now become so blurred by general usage that people can mean almost anything when they use it. What I am concerned to preserve is parliamentary democracy, individual liberty and the right of law-abiding citizens to earn their living as independent men and women without being beholden to the Government for the time being for their right to live in their own country. I imagine the Government will claim that they subscribe broadly to these sentiments but acts speak louder than words.

I ask the Minister to answer categorically now to the House and the country what he proposes to do about the situation his Government's policies are producing in the country. The Minister has now committed himself to a policy of price control. He assures the country that he aspires, in a remarkable process of conversion, to an incomes policy. It is a very short time, not 12 months, since he was declaring an incomes policy to be a figment of disturbed imaginations among the Opposition. He was campaigning most energetically to prove it was impossible. I do not believe it is impossible. It is extremely difficult. I remember being asked at a public meeting in Ballina what would happen if the trade unionists did not collaborate, and what sanctions did I advocate in order to make them do it. My reply was that if I needed to employ sanctions, the incomes policy would have failed. I do not believe you can, in a free society, impose sanctions to compel men to work.

I am not much interested in what happens if we abandon freedom for some alleged economic end. I am not so sure these sentiments are shared by all Deputies, particularly on the Fianna Fail benches. I detect a horrible intellectual tendency among some of them to say: "We would sooner be rich than free." If that tendency should grow, the time has come to examine our consciences. That is not what our fathers or our grandfathers wanted. They wanted to be free, whatever the cost. If the new doctrine is to be, "we want to be rich rather than free", we should examine where that dialectic leads.

It is because a change in that mode of thought is being promoted in this country that I have ventured to say in this House, and I now repeat that, that the economic policy of this Government is not only placing our economic independence in jeopardy but placing our political independence in jeopardy as well. I want to remind Deputies, if they regard that warning as extravagant, that it is less than 12 months since I said in this House: "Beware lest the road you are travelling does not send the Government hawking the credit of Ireland throughout the world and finding no takers." When I gave that warning, a great many Deputies, including Deputy Moore, I am sure, were shocked that such words could be spoken in this House, but they have lived to see that happening, to see the Government of this country go to the United States of America to seek a loan at a very onerous rate of interest and find there were no takers.

How vital is this question of profits? We are all concerned to provide additional industrial employment for our people. I recalled last night that it was Deputy Sweetman who inaugurated exemptions from income tax and corporation profits tax for industrialists who provided extra exports. It was the late Deputy William Norton, God be good to him, who first introduced the concept of the Industrial Grants Act. Now we have reached a stage in which we have one of the largest industries in the country pointing out that as a result of Government action the profits derived from their operations in a stated period last year were of the order of £400,000, and that in the corresponding period of this year, their losses were of the order of £100,000. The firm I refer to which elected to have that statement published in the newspapers are Goulding's, the fertiliser factory. What are we going to do about it?

One thing is perfectly certain. Neither that firm nor any other firm can go on indefinitely trading at a loss. We have, therefore, two alternatives. We can either take them over and run them at a loss, charging the loss to the Exchequer as we do in regard to CIE and almost every other Government operated industry or enable them to earn profits. So far as I am aware, every single industry operated by the Government is run at a loss. It is quite true that the ESB operate on the basis of paying their interest and loans charges, but they are in the happy state of being able to fix the rate for electricity, and the public have to pay whatever is requisite to discharge the loan and interest charges the ESB have to meet, to finance the capital they use in their programme of generation and distribution.

It is perfectly true that Bord na Móna ordinarily breaks even, except for seasonal losses. Bord na Móna, a Government-operated industry, simply cut the turf, determine what the cutting of the turf costs, and charge it to the ESB; the ESB pay them and put it on the cost of electricity. I need not go into the financial situation of Irish Shipping, but in common with many other companies, they are losing loads of money. CIE, apart from the sale of rails to countries in Africa and elsewhere, are losing loads of money. I could go down the whole list, but I should like to ask the Minister does he intend to add this fertiliser industry to that list and, if the list grows longer, who will pay the losses? At present we are finding the money to pay the losses out of the profits of individual entrepreneurs who are earning profits. If we make individuals who are making profits unprofitable and take them over, where will we get the revenue to pay for the losses in the enterprises which we have converted from profit-earning enterprises into loss-earning Government-operated industries?

The Minister may say to me: what do you propose? Do you propose to raise the price of fertilisers? In fact, we all know that having carted off the farmers in Black Marias until there was no more room for them in the Bridewell, and having declared that nothing on God's earth would ever alter his inflexible resolve never to talk to anyone who was conducting himself in such a way as to justify his removal in a Black Maria, and in the Minister's words "to talk to no circus clown performing outside Leinster House," the Minister for Agriculture is now beyond in Government Buildings conversing with them most industriously.

The purpose of their discussion is to explain to the Minister for Agriculture that agriculture has become uneconomic and agriculture has become uneconomic because their costs have increased to a point which leaves them no margin of profit on their sales. One of the essential raw materials of the agricultural industry is fertilisers and so if you increase the price of fertiliser —unless you want to crucify the farmers altogether—you will have to increase the price of agricultural produce. If you increase the price of agricultural produce, you increase the cost of living, and if you increase the cost of living, you will have to have another round of wage increases and the losses will grow bigger, or else you increase the cost of the farmer's raw materials and the cost of food and the cost of living and you can go dancing around that maypole until everyone gets dizzy and the community collapses.

These are fundamental facts which nobody cares to face. That is what inflation means. Once you start on that dizzy dance, there is no ending. It is the Government who started that dance and it is the Government who are responsible for telling us how they propose to control it. I told them in this House two years ago that if they put on the turnover tax, they would launch this country into a dialectic of inflation that would bring us to the edge of the abyss. I fought that issue in North-East Dublin and defeated the Government. In Cork and Kildare, the Government proclaimed that it was all an illusion, that there was plenty for everybody, that everybody ought to have a substantial increase. Naturally when the responsible Government of the country certified that this was so, the electorate accepted that view and they triumphantly won these two elections. Then we had the subsequent elections and the general election and now we are in the situation that the Government, having solemnly proclaimed for all to hear that the economic foundations of the State would be utterly undermined if there was any increase in wages or salaries in excess of three per cent, have, with equal publicity and equal solemnity, declared that they approve of the Labour Court recommendation that there should be an increase of some six to seven per cent.

Both statements cannot be true. They were either dealing in falsehood when they spoke of the three per cent or else they are dealing in falsehood today. Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party know that. I want to ask the Minister for Industry and Commerce when the Government expressed their approbation of the recent finding of the Labour Court, were they telling the truth then or were they telling the truth when they told the House that anything in excess of three per cent would uproot the foundations of the State?

Mr. L'Estrange

The Presidential election.

Mr. Dillon

It is more important than that because the people down the country are asking: "Are we governed by frauds? Could you believe the gospel from their lips?" What they say on Monday they deny on Tuesday and what they avowed on Tuesday, they repudiate on Wednesday. Not only are they a weak but they are a bewildered Government. I would not mind if they were tottering if we could totter them and get rid of them but there they are sitting on their majority and the trouble is that this Government no longer believes in being honest. I am sorry to say when I am asked down the country what are they up to, all I can say is that I do not think they know themselves; they are living from hour to hour, from day to day, contradicting themselves when it is expedient to do so and hoping like Mr. Micawber that something will turn up. That is a disastrous state for this country to be in.

Now, I put the problem of Goulding's squarely to the Minister and I think he must answer but there is a much graver problem. Goulding's is an enterprise largely concerned with the Irish market. Of course we know that it has very intimate connections with Imperial Chemical Industries and certain foreign industries, but there is another large firm in this country traditionally associated with the best employment provided in Ireland, that is, Guinness's Brewery. Guinness's Brewery have always paid the highest rate of wages paid in this country. They have been directed that they are not to change their prices. I do not believe, whatever direction they get, that Guinness's will ever pull up their sticks and clear out of the country. However, what we ought remember is this: when I was a child, every drop of Guinness's stout that was consumed in every part of the world was brewed in the city of Dublin.

I have seen in my lifetime a large part of Guinness's business transferred from this country to Great Britain. I have seen in my lifetime, out of the profits earned by that establishment, a practically completely new brewery built in this city, because practically every square yard of Guinness's Brewery has been reconstructed, rebuilt and brought up-to-date in my lifetime. Out of profits, mark you; not out of Government grants. Now, Guinness's can expand their business as they grow, either in Dublin or in Great Britain. Are we going to create a situation in this country in which that company will simply announce: "There will be no more expansion in Ireland. We are going to expand where earning profits has not become disreputable"?

I give these two cases in point because these two companies have themselves publicised their own problem. Ordinarily, we do not choose to refer to individual enterprises by name in this House but both Guinness's and Goulding's have publicised their own problem and stated their dilemma. I am putting that dilemma to the Minister. What does he propose to do about it?

It is astonishing to me the confusion that exists in the minds of many people when we speak of a wages and incomes policy, the confusion that arises between the earning of profit and the distribution of dividends. A wages and incomes policy, as I understand it, means that you ask wage earners, salary earners and sharehouders for a specific period to exercise restraint in order to relieve the strain on the national economy. But the fact that you ask the dividend earner to exercise restraint does not mean that you ask every business in the country to become inefficient for the period of restraint required. But it does mean that you say to a number of business enterprises: "If a large surplus of profit threatens to emerge owing to your growing efficiency in this period, after providing for the necessary sinking funds and maintenance of your factory, consider the devoting of at least part of those profits to reducing prices to the consumer so that that contribution of reduced prices to the consumer will make it easier for the trade unionists and salary earners to accept less than they had hoped to secure by industrial negotiation for this limited period while an incomes and wages policy is necessary." Unless you are prepared to say that, unless you are prepared to do that, it is all eyewash to be asking trade union leaders to go down to Liberty Hall or Marlborough Street and ask their members to exercise restraint.

But at the other end of the rainbow it is utter insanity to imagine that you are setting the trade unionists in Liberty Hall and Marlborough Street the right example by saying to the firms that employ them: "We are going to bring in a situation in which you cannot earn profits." That is not the appropriate quid pro quo which an industrial entrepreneur ought to be called on to make in a wages and incomes policy. The hallmark of success, the hallmark of industrial enterprises contributing to the national welfare, is the size of the profits they earn, provided they operate in open competition, pay fair wages and maintain decent standards. But the amount of profits for distribution to shareholders should be restrained if we expect wage and salary earners to exercise restraint.

I believe the root of this whole evil goes back to the turnover tax. But that is not the end of the evils. It strikes me there is a mentality developing in this country which has come to regard the distributive trades as in some sense disreputable. If that is so, then a large part of the population are engaged in disreputable activity. I have been engaged in the retail and wholesale distribution businesses all my life. I regard them as a very essential and important element in the economic life of the country, without which the economic life of the country would come to a standstill. It is true that in Russia, in a socialist state, distribution is carried on by the government. I understand that in Russia the GUM controls every retail distribution centre. But the GUM is in fact not only a trade and distribution unit; it is an instrument for taxing the consumer. Prices rise and fall in the GUM at the government's whim. They raise the revenue of the State on clothes, food and the other essentials the people have to buy. In a free economy, retail distribution is carried on by the shopkeepers of the country.

I want to warn the Minister for Industry and Commerce. I remember well when his Government brought in the turnover tax. I remember well saying, speaking from the Front Bench because I was then Leader of the Opposition: "I can tell you what this tax will do to the retail trade of this country. It will destroy ultimately every family business in this country. It will hand over the retail and, ultimately, the wholesale distribution of goods to large foreign combines who are coming in and taking over." Was I right? Is that not so? They are moving in steadily and wiping out the small individual shopkeeper. I beg of Deputies to ask themselves the question in time: what sort of society do you want? Do you want to wipe out every small businessman in this country? Do you want to close down every family business in rural Ireland and in our cities and towns? If you want that, you are going to precipitate a social revolution of a most radical kind.

Leave out the social aspect of it altogether, immensely important as it is. Do you want large British combines to come in here for no other reason than to collect the profits on distribution and transfer those profits to Great Britain? Is that economically desirable from the point of view of this country? I do not say it is so undesirable that we should prohibit it, but I do must emphatically say that it is economic suicide to promote it. That is what is going to happen. It is happening before our eyes at present. Whether you can arrest it or not now is open to doubt. But the turnover tax, which converted the retail distributors of this country into tax gatherers, is wiping out the small individual traders and delivering retail distribution more and more into the hands of powerful international combines who, with their vast financial resources, can move into this country, skim the profit and take it away.

That is an undesirable development socially and economically. It is one to which the Minister should turn his mind. I am asking him for a specific answer to the problems I have outlined, which are by no means confined to Goulding's and Guinness's alone because they are being reproduced in a number of other industries. But they are typified by the situation arising in Goulding's and Guinness's. That arises from the fact that the Minister says: "You must bear the increased costs. You must not increase your price." The difference between your costs of operation and the price you get for your goods is your profit. The Minister says: "I am not interested in that profit. You must pay the increased costs. You must not increase your prices and the profit is your problem." He reaches the point that he converts a profit into a loss.

I want to put it to him that he is not entitled to wash his hands at that stage and if he does, he will destroy the whole economic foundations on which this State rests. I will say particularly to my friends of the Labour Party: if we destroy profits, we destroy the source from which employment is paid for and the social services are financed; and as we destroy employment, we promote emigration, and the emigrants who go are the productive elements in our society who leave with us the children and the old who need social services. The very people who are capable of earning the profits to pay for these we are forcing out to Birmingham, London and elsewhere. Let us face it: the British are eager to get them. They are facing a situation of full employment and their most acute problem is to loosen the tightening knot of labour scarcity in Great Britain. The productive elements of our society, the boys and girls between 18 and 30 years of age, are being drawn into a powerful vacuum in Great Britain. I suggest to the Minister for Industry and Commerce the policy he is pursuing is pushing the productive elements of our community into the vacuum which is already pulling them out of this country and into Great Britain.

There are certain other specific matters I should like to raise with the Minister. I have a problem in my constituency. In most constituencies in the country, if there is a prospect of industrial development of one kind or another, we all lend a hand and do what we can to make straight the path of the industry that is coming in. That is customarily the situation in County Monaghan, but there was one industry in Clones that became the special prerogative of the Minister for Transport and Power. This was going to be his chef d'oeuvre and Deputy Dillon was to stay a thousand miles away. A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse and I said “If that is the way this industry is to be effectively promoted, I am quite prepared to stand far off and let the wizard boy perform his miracles and provide the employment necessary.”

Ernetex was born and we were going to employ 1,200 people in Clones. The wizard boy was going to get grants like manna from heaven. Right enough, they got a very substantial grant of £86,000. That was a pretty dazzling performance. I was delighted to hear my neighbours in Monaghan were going to do so well. The wizard was up laying corner stones, turning keys and opening doors and he nearly went up on the roof to put on the chimney for us.

Dr. Hillery

I would say he is a good TD.

Mr. Dillon

He wants to keep his seat. He lost it in Westmeath and he is going to lose it in Monaghan in the next general election, but that is another day's work. Anyway, he was all over Ernetex and he did not come empty-handed. He managed to get grants amounting to £86,000. We were all dazzled by this performance. Then to my amazement somebody told me one day in County Monaghan that Ernetex was bust. I said: "That could not be. They have just got a grant of £86,000 and the Minister for Transport and Power, who must know what is going on, declares it to be a gold mine."

I have the greatest sympathy with the fact that Ernetex blew up. However, there is an unfortunate Monaghan contractor, a man who is trying to earn his living, a most ardent supporter of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. He was induced to enter into a contract to build this factory because the wizard boy was its patron and he knew what was going on and said there was unlimited money and everything was high, wide and handsome. This unfortunate man entered into a contract for over £40,000 to build the factory. He built the factory and employed sub-contractors; they were putting in electrical installations, plumbing, and I could not tell you what not. The net result of it is that this contractor is going around with a bill in his hand for £12,400 that he cannot get out of anybody. He is told there is a liquidator in, and the liquidator will not pay him. That is a great hardship.

I understand that so effectively did the wizard boy operate that there is still a balance of £15,000 of the grant approved which is not yet issued. I understand the situation to be that when the balance of the grant is issued to the liquidator, it may be used to pay debts due in France, Great Britain and elsewhere. May I suggest to the Minister for Industry and Commerce that this is a matter in which he might legitimately intervene and I shall acquit him here and now——

Dr. Hillery

The courts would not.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister has £15,000.

Dr. Hillery

The creditors have claims.

Mr. Dillon

Nobody has a claim on the Minister to make a grant.

Dr. Hillery

I can pay the grant.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister need not pay it.

Dr. Hillery

All the creditors have a claim on that grant from Foras Tionscal.

Mr. Dillon

Foras Tionscal need not pay them. The liquidator is in. They can say: "This business has folded up and we will pay no more of the grant". They could attach conditions to the balance of the grant and say: "There is a factory there. We propose to issue the balance of the grant of which we have approved, with the condition attached to it that it shall not be used for any purpose other than the construction of the factory".

Dr. Hillery

They are not entitled to do that.

Mr. Dillon

Why?

Dr. Hillery

The conditions of the grant are already established. They are not entitled to give a grant for one creditor.

Mr. Dillon

I am not asking that they give a grant for one creditor but for one purpose.

Dr. Hillery

It would be for one creditor. That is another way of saying it.

Mr. Dillon

Exactly. There are more ways of killing a cat than choking it with a pound of butter. We do not want to give a free grant to a liquidator to hand over to the residents of France, Great Britain or somewhere else. Would it not be legitimate to say: "This grant must be used only for the purpose of the building which, whatever happens to Ernetex, will continue to be there"?

Dr. Hillery

I am told it is not legitimate.

Mr. Dillon

Let the Minister make it legitimate.

Dr. Hillery

Shall we pass a law?

Mr. Dillon

Yes. I am surprised to hear the Minister say it is not legitimate. I understood he had discretion in regard to grants and could put the matter before the House. If a Minister proclaims in a rural area like west Monaghan that everything in the garden is lovely and induces a small local contractor to enter into a heavy commitment in order to complete a factory which a Minister of the Government declares to be a gold mine and in respect of which he gets a grant of £86,000, it seems a great hardship that that man has to wind up with a bill for £12,000 due out of a total contract of the order of £40,000, and the sub-contractors are waiting to get paid.

I do not know whether the Minister can do anything in this specific case. I hope he can; I think he could if he put his mind to it. But at least we can make sure that other contractors will not fall into the same misfortune. I believe that, in respect of the balance of the grant due, the Minister should attach a condition that it will issue only on condition that it is used for the purpose of the building and not for the general purpose of the liquidation of the liquidator's debts.

I want now to raise another point. One of the great difficulties about dealing with the Government is that nobody is reponsible for anything and everybody is responsible for nothing. There is a factory now being established in Carrickmacross. The local development company have succeeded in getting a French combine to set up a factory there to manufacture tiles and ceramics of one kind or another. In the same area, the Carrickmacross Urban District Council and Monaghan County Council have been trying for two years to get sanction from the Minister for Local Government to proceed with a housing scheme because there is an acute shortage of houses in the area.

I shall be asking a question next week of the Minister for Local Government as to whether his sanction will be available for the scheme but I want to put it to the Minister for Industry and Commerce that, if the houses are not built in Carrickmacross, the industry will not long survive because, if there are no houses for the workers to live in, the factory cannot possibly expand or thrive. The plain truth is the factory was brought there at the time on the understanding that there was abundant money available to build houses where houses were needed and that it was the policy of the Government to match housing to the industrial development in the area.

I am happy to say I believe the ceramic factory is now irrevocably committed to being erected in Carrickmacross but I most urgently press on the Minister that he has a clear duty to press on his colleagues, the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Local Government, that there is no use urging the establishment of factories if, when people have done so, it is discovered there is no housing in which to put the workers. The particular situation that obtains in Carrickmacross is one urgently demanding that sanction should be forthcoming for the housing scheme proposed by the local authority in the area and the finance necessary to carry it through should be provided.

I do not like to be leaning on the Minister's sore spots, but surely the Minister feels that the time has come to redeem his undertaking to tell this House and the country when are the aeroplanes going to be manufactured in Potez? There is this immense factory standing on the Rathcoole road, which is to manufacture aeroplanes. I do not know whether or not they are going to manufacture aeroplanes but we have been looking at the factory for a long time and I have seen no propellers and no wings going in. I thought the aeroplanes would be roaring out by now, but I have not seen any propellers or wings carried in.

Dr. Hillery

Flaps and ailerons have been made and I think they went out about a week ago.

Mr. Donegan

All the flapping is done by the Minister's side of the House.

Dr. Hillery

We have to start small.

Mr. Dillon

We must all learn to creep before we run. That is quite agreed. But flaps and ailerons after four years is a very modest reward for the substantial investment that has been made. I believe we have a very large accumulation of oil heaters sitting below in Galway and nobody can be blamed that there are not plenty of oil heaters. The problem is nobody wants to buy them. I believe the Valor Oil Company have gone out of business in Great Britain because nobody wants oil heaters and this is the time at which we launch out in a big way to manufacture oil heaters in Ireland. Give the devil his due, the Potez oil heater is a very efficient heater. Whether it is a saleable commodity or not is another day's work, but I think the Minister has an obligation to give a realistic appraisal of the situation on the Rathcoole road and I want to say to him now that nobody will regard it as realistic to say that, after four years, some ailerons and flaps have come out of the factory.

Dr. Hillery

I promised the House a statement. When it is available, I will make it. I do not intend flaps and ailerons to be that statement.

Mr. Dillon

Could the Minister give us an indication of when the statement will be made?

Dr. Hillery

I am not quite sure. If the position were worse than it is, a statement could easily be made.

Mr. Dillon

Quite so, I understand the House has set itself the edifying target of adjourning on 30th June. May I take it the Minister will make the statement before 30th June? In any case, for heaven's sake, do not have a dance or a dogfight in Ennistymon under the patronage of a Fianna Fáil club and elect to make it there. The place to make it is here in the Dáil.

Dr. Hillery

I promise to make a statement in the House. The statement relates rather to the working of the factory which is something I cannot control at the moment.

Mr. Dillon

I fully appreciate the difficulties but I also hope this resolve to make a statement to the House will not be taken as a general approbation of making the statement next October.

Dr. Hillery

That is a difficulty, but I will not make it at a dogfight anyway.

Mr. Dillon

A little progress is a welcome thing. This shows again the incomparable value of Parliament and I think the Minister for Industry and Commerce and I may exchange mutual congratulations in this regard. We have acted on the admirable precept of lighting a little candle rather than crying in the dark and it is a very valuable constitutional reform to secure an undertaking from one member of the Fianna Fáil Government that important policy pronouncements will not here-after be made at dogfights.

There is one last matter in relation to which I want to say a word to the Minister for Industry and Commerce. It is one of the extraordinary anachronisms of this country that employment exchanges have in fact become unemployment exchanges. I have always felt that employment exchanges should have as their primary function the matching of men and women to jobs. The function of the manager of an employment exchange-mark you, they are called employment exchanges—should be to be on the lookout for suitable men in search of jobs and on the lookout for jobs to meet the requirements of men registered at the exchange. But, through an extraordinary dispensation, I regret to say that the employment exchanges are part of the responsibility of the Minister for Social Welfare. Is that not odd?

We have allowed this concept to grow in our minds here in Dáil Éireann that what we originally called employment exchanges have, in fact, become a branch of social welfare as unemployment exchanges. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Commerce was put up yesterday to make a grand speech. He was going to open four employment exchanges in four centres in the country. Does anybody realise that we have in every area of the country what ought to be employment exchanges but what, through some extraordinary foible, have come to be generally accepted in the North of Ireland as "the bureau" and in the rest of the country as unemployment exchanges. I shall not trespass on the patience of the Chair or of the Minister by urging reform by him in respect of these employment exchanges which have come to be known as unemployment exchanges. However, seeing that he is about to set up four more himself, would the Minister mind telling me this? Has he now accepted the idea that the employment exchanges are, in fact, unemployment exchanges and that it has become necessary to set up four new institutions under his Department, to be known as employment exchanges, in connection with the manpower policy? I suggest to him that, instead of setting up four new establishments, he should get the employment exchanges to do the work for which they were originally designed, that is, to provide employment for those who go there.

Has the Minister ever been in an employment exchange? Have you ever, apart from the Bridewell behind the Four Courts, been in a more depressing place than the employment exchanges in the city of Dublin? Were you ever in the one down in Beresford Place? If the Minister is accepting responsibility for this manpower policy, which I thought we always had but which I now discover is a complete innovation—I understood we had a huge organisation all over the country operating a manpower policy but the Minister, apparently, has discovered that such an organisation does not exist at all—might I suggest to him that, instead of rushing off and building four or five new ones, he use the ones that are there already? Some of them are nice. There is a fine employment exchange in Clonmel. If they were all of that standard, I think people would go to them. If they were staffed by people who felt that their primary duty was to get jobs, and not to distribute industrial unemployment benefit, I believe they would do the job the Minister has in mind probably more effectively than these four or five centres he will now set up. The local employment manager knows the area where he works and knows the people in it. He knows the duds and he knows the good men who really want work. If it were made clear that the manager of the employment exchange was seriously trying to match men to jobs, ordinary employers would be much more disposed to have recourse to the local employment exchange than they are ever likely to have to some remote institution 50 or 60 miles away from the place in which they are operating at the present time.

One of the most urgent jobs the Minister should do is to make up his mind, or to get the Government to make up their minds, as to the function of the employment exchange which is to match men with jobs. If that is so, then it is a matter of real urgency that these employment exchanges should be made attractive, well-equipped and decent places where decent, hard-working, industrious men can go and be properly received as respectable, independent citizens who want work and the right to earn their living. I can very well imagine such a man at present facing the prospect of going to some of the labour exchanges in Dublin with repugnance and reluctance because the accommodation provided there reminds one of the old workhouses, of the bad old days.

I believe there is in existence, through the labour exchanges, a network which could provide employment for a great many people, if it were properly used. One of the great dangers of our present situation is that anything that catches a headline in the newspapers or on the radio or on the television is regarded as preferable to some real concrete proposal that works. Now, it is much more exciting, from the point of view of news, to announce a new manpower policy and that we are to build new manpower centres here, there and elsewhere in Ireland, that we are to establish new staffs, that this is to be under the Minister for Industry and Commerce. All that is much more newsworthy than to say: "We shall decorate, clean, staff and equip the employment exchanges of this country; the Minister for Industry and Commerce will have responsibility for ensuring that they will discharge the function for which they were originally designed, that is, to match men with jobs; the manager of the labour exchange will be asked to work closely with the chief executive officer in the county for which he works in order to help in the retraining of men and women or in the vocational training of young boys and girls, where such training would facilitate the creation of new jobs". I believe that, if the Minister did that, all the rest of the hullabaloo would probably be unnecessary but of course Fianna Fáil believe in hullabaloo. I think they would be much better employed engaged in hard work. Some day, I hope they will recognise that hard work is worth more to this country than hullabaloo. I do not hope to see it. Courteous and friendly as the present Minister for Industry and Commerce undoubtedly is, so long as he remains a member of the present Government, he is no damned good. If he ever shakes off their disreputable shackles, I would hope he would make a valuable contribution to the public life of this country.

Mr. Moore

I suppose it is natural that, in this debate, practically every speaker has referred to industrial relations. The Minister has made it crystal clear that he is prepared to do everything in his power to promote harmony in industrial relations. I want to compliment the Minister on his behaviour during some recent difficult months when relations were not of the best. By his very attitude in showing how anxious he was to help he created a good impression, and at the same time, he never panicked. On one occasion when I had to approach him with some workers during a strike, I was impressed by his intelligent handling of the situation and without any publicity or any fuss, he found the basis for a settlement. I want to compliment him on his report which covers such a wide section of our economy.

Some may say we are exaggerating the seriousness of the industrial relations situation at present but when we see the OECD report and find that we are at the bottom of the list for good relations, it is time to examine the position and see how we can erase the image of us that has been created abroad by this report. I worked for many years on a factory floor and like most others, I graduated to something better. Although I speak from experience I do not intend to lecture anybody but to comment on the situation in the hope that it will help to bring about the state of affairs we would all wish to see. In this country of fewer than three million people, we have a glorious opportunity of showing that we can build up our economy so that it will offer full employment to our people, at the same time safeguarding the dignity of man. Being free, we accept as individuals that we have a duty to each other and to the State.

One of the greatest causes of bad relations in industry is that management will seldom take workers into their confidence. In most of the big concerns, if you are on the factory floor, you are simply a number on a punch card beside the clock; in some cases even the names do not appear. It is this terribly impersonal handling that makes workers dissatisfied. Any firms that do enjoy good relations with their workers—and there are many of them—will tell you that the secret is that their workers, even those doing the most menial jobs, are made to feel that they are individuals and count for something and are not just numbers on the payroll. The more progressive firms plan ahead and take the workers into their confidence. They say: "We want to do this: we cannot do it unless we get your co-operation." There is one factory in this city which I think has never had a strike. It employs about 700 men and pays very good wages. When I spoke to the personnel officer and asked him how this was achieved, he said he did not want to use a cliché but it was simply that they treated the workers as human beings.

Human beings are no more perfect than managements and a man may be offhand and down tools. It is then a case of how that situation is dealt with. On the one hand, you may say that any man who sets out to describe all workers as angels and all managements as devils is heading for trouble. In Ireland today there is an opportunity to recognise that we have a tough time ahead and we are not alone, as every country is facing the same thing. I listened to Deputy Dillon acting as a prophet of gloom. He does neither himself nor his Party much good by forecasting dire happenings. I could indulge in recriminations about what his Government did when in power but it would not serve any purpose. I will say to the Fine Gael Party that Fianna Fáil will not run away from their responsibilities as Fine Gael did on two occasions when given the chance of power as a minority Party. Twice they broke in disorder and chaos and ran away and left it to Fianna Fáil to clear up the mess.

Mr. Donegan

Do not worry: you will be put out in 12 or 18 months.

Mr. Moore

And Labour were equally guilty at that time. Deputy Dillon began his speech after a remark by Deputy Larkin about profit. He seemed to think that Deputy Larkin suggested there was something immoral about profit. Nobody believes that and I do not think Deputy Larkin meant it that way. Deputy Dillon went on to give us a treatise on how sacred profit is. I am not a socialist; I believe in free enterprise and I agree with Deputy Dillon when he mentions the United States as the greatest capitalist country in the world, a country that gives most of its workers the highest living standards.

Again, in regard to industrial relations, some change must be made. We hear the people in Abbey Street saying: "It is 1913 all over again." But I think these are people who are causing a lot of trouble, people who are anti-trade union. I know that there are people in this city who are anti-trade union and anti-everything and are causing trouble. There is one individual who is not a member of a trade union but who has been involved in three strikes. Neither was he employed by the firms involved in the strikes. I am glad to see that at least three trade unions have spoken out against these people. Last week when we had pickets on, I was glad to see that some of the agricultural men were on the watch for undesirable elements seeking to use any cause to create trouble.

I wish to pay tribute also to some trade unions who, even though they may have taken strike action, on three recent occasions limited picketing to the sections involved and thus allowed other workers to continue in employment without passing pickets. That shows these trade union leaders are responsible men striving very hard to achieve good industrial relations. Could we, by agreement, put an end to wildcat strikes? I defend to the last the right of a worker to strike or picket but I do not defend the wildcat strike which causes real suffering, not perhaps to the management, apart from the money they may lose, but to those involved.

It may be said that it is all right to talk here but that these things happen. I was involved on at least one occasion myself in a wildcat strike. These things happen very quickly. At one minute the factory is working normally and then something blows up, a man is dismissed or suspended for doing something wrong, and immediately the workers all walk out. The union men are sent for and come along and generally it is fixed up in three or four hours. But that is three or four hours of production lost and it does not help towards better relations. We should impress on all concerned the need to be on guard against all such happenings and how essential it is to prevent them so that we can present a better image to the outside world and make ourselves better off by striving to have better relations between management and workers.

I remember Jim Larkin very well. He was the prime mover in 1913. People say: "If the men who went out in 1913 were alive today, what a different country we would have". My people were Larkinites and I remember Jim Larkin in his later days being abused by people, including workers, just as the Minister is being abused here today. I do not believe in waiting until a man dies to give him support or to pay him homage. While Jim Larkin was alive, I supported him. There was something great in him. If he were alive today, he would be abused as the Minister is being abused this morning or as anybody in authority is abused. Larkin strove all his life after 1913 for industrial relations. I heard him being abused because he would not take the popular line. He had sufficient courage to stand up to his abusers. Today we have to stand up to those people who are causing trouble in this city, faceless men who have no allegiance to anybody, whose only object is to cause confusion.

Fine Gael speakers have attacked the efforts of the Government to attract new industries here. I find it difficult to follow them. The Minister has said, at page 4 of his brief:

Projects with foreign participation accounted for about 60 per cent of the capital investment and nearly 70 per cent of the employment involved. At the end of 1965, 49 new factories having an employment potential of about 4,500 persons and estimated investment of £29.1 million, were under construction.

The majority of the new undertakings established here in recent years are based on production for export. This is illustrated by the value of industrial exports, which in the past year was over 150 per cent above the corresponding 1958 level.

Most of the Fine Gael speakers seemed to gloat over the fact of a factory failing. If a factory fails, it would seem that is something to be thankful for. No wonder they are a minority Party and always will be. How can they expect people to support them? They talk about a just society but they gloat over the failure of a factory. There must be casualties. Their attitude is on a level with saying that because people die under surgical operations, doctors should not operate. In any free society there will be casualties. At the same time, I am sure every care is taken, when foreigners apply for industrial grants, to have the projects thoroughly investigated. If they are not investigated, and I have no reason to think they are not, there is something wrong.

Deputy Dillon blames everything on the turnover tax. That is utterly ridiculous. On a previous occasion I asked Deputy Dillon if by some mischance he were returned to power, would he abolish the tax. He gave an evasive answer and did not say if he would or would not. He suggested that the turnover tax was responsible for the growth of chain stores here. I was not in the House when the turnover tax was introduced but I know the position in the city. I remember being invited to open a huge chain store. I certainly refused to do so. That was before the turnover tax was imposed. These people have built many markets here since. We may deplore the chain store age we are living in but we have to face the fact that we are living in it and that chain stores were in being long before the introduction of the turnover tax and will continue in existence. The tax also will continue because no Government will ever repeal it. Let us stop being hypocritical about those things.

The Government have been criticised for their failure to get credit abroad. Every country in the world has credit troubles at the moment. Consider how Great Britain has been able to carry on. It is not so long ago that Britain appealed to the whole world, to West Germany, to the United States of America and to France, for money to bolster their falling £. In the interests of Europe, those other free enterprise countries came to the aid of Britain. We, as the Minister has stated, have not got a God-given right to prosperity. It is up to ourselves to achieve prosperity. It entails tremendously hard work. If we could have a breathing space of six months or a year free from industrial troubles, the people would have a more prosperous country and by our own efforts we would have built it up.

Our whole history is marked by our hope for foreign aid. I am one who welcomes investment of foreign capital in this country. We must have it if we are to progress. Capital is not an end in itself. It is simply a means of helping us to build the economy so that we can have full employment for our people in their own country. I should like to see a change in the attitude of people towards strikes. There are many strikes taking place in semi-State organisations which we, the people, own. That must be changed. In very few cases is the employer a member of the Ascendancy. Fifty years ago, employers may have represented the Ascendancy. The people, by their efforts, have built up industries, some of which are a great credit to the country. Therein lies the blueprint of progress. As I have said, I am not a socialist but I do believe that if free enterprise fails in any sphere, it is the duty of the State to provide the services or industry. We have done it in the case of Aer Lingus, the ESB, Bord na Móna and a hundred others. That is my form of socialism. Where free enterprise cannot do the job, the State must come in. That is not an original idea. Every Deputy agrees with it.

I want to conclude by making the plea that both management and labour will strive even a little harder than they have been doing to come together so that we will not be at the head of the strike chart in the OECD Report.

Mr. McAuliffe

Deputy Dillon referred to one very important point, namely, that the Minister for Industry and Commerce should negotiate with his two colleagues in the Cabinet, the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Local Government, as far as the housing situation is concerned in order to protect already existing industries. I refer to this because at the present moment, as a member of Cork County Council, I am aware of the position in a progressive town in East Cork. The town of Mitchelstown has made great headway over a long number of years. Mitchelstown Co-operative Society is a very prominent creamery, manufacturing cheese. They proposed to erect a bacon factory. I am led to believe that a housing problem will confront those who are operating these industries in the very near future. Manpower must be available for an industry and can be available only if there is sufficient housing in the neighbourhood. We are in the situation at the moment that Cork County Council are not able to meet the demands in this line for lack of finance. I would ask the Minister to use his influence with his colleagues in the matter.

I should like to refer to the protection of our existing industries, and in particular to one very important industry, that is, Irish Steel Holdings. I am led to believe that over the past two years a considerable amount of unemployment has been created by men being laid off by Irish Steel Holdings at Cobh, County Cork. Why this should happen is a mystery to me. The Minister's colleagues in the Dáil, not so long ago, and my own colleague in East Cork, Deputy Corry, reminded this House that we had British manufactured steel coming into this country and being used here. I was amazed just like other Deputies when we attended, during the past 12 months, with the Minister for Transport and Power, the opening of a new store at Mallow, to find out that the corrugated iron used in the erection of that store was made in England.

Mallow is less than 30 miles from Cobh where Irish Steel Holdings exists and it is strange to think that the Department of Transport and Power could not use Irish manufactured steel in the erection of a store at Mallow for CIE. There is no doubt about it because marked on every sheet of iron is "Made in England". This iron did not come into this country 30 or 35 years ago. It came quite recently and was used recently, under the direction of the Minister for Transport and Power, in the erection of that store. In addition to that, it is only 12 months since I saw lead pencils marked "Made in England", being used at Mallow platform by CIE officials, despite the fact that in Fermoy we have an important industry run by Faber-Castell engaged in the manufacture of lead pencils. These pencils are apparently not good enough for use by CIE.

In addition to this, it is a well-known fact that many of our cups and saucers and cutlery in general use by the Department of Defence at the present moment are made in Japan. If you go into any of the canteens and look at the bottom of a cup or saucer, you will find "Made in Japan". Surely if we have a desire or ambition to protect Irish industries, the one thing we should do is make quite sure that every State and semi-State concern will utilise the products of the industries existing at the present moment.

I am asking the Minister for Industry and Commerce to make sure that he will use his good offices with his colleagues to ensure that our industries will be given ample protection by the Departments who have the opportunity to protect them. It is scandalous at the moment to think that we have a few hundred men laid off in the town of Cobh by Irish Steel Holdings and no effort being made for their re-employment. At the present time this is very important to the town of Cobh. The majority of the people employed in Irish Steel Holdings live in the town of Cobh and I am asking the Minister to let us know what his views are on this major industry.

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Dr. Hillery)

Many of the matters raised in this debate will be answered in pending legislation. Today we have on the Order Paper the Industrial Grants (Amendment) Bill which raises the question of industrial estates and expansion of adaptation grants legislation. Next week I hope the Industrial Training Bill, 1965 will be circulated to Deputies with an explanatory memorandum. This will widen out the picture as drawn here by the Parliamentary Secretary yesterday and will perhaps encourage Deputy Dillon to see more in the Manpower Authority than the decoration of employment exchanges. I have discovered since he spoke today that some of them have been decorated and have been made quite comfortable. I was going to compare them with the banks but that might not be appropriate at the moment.

With regard to industrial relations legislation, when I referred to this I intended it to be just a passing reference to indicate to the House that this legislation has gone to the stage of development as far as my thinking, the general opinions given to me and broad decisions by the Government are concerned. I did not intend to get involved in any debate before the introduction of the legislation itself. We have sought the comments of the people most concerned with these proposals. There is some idea, not clearly articulated, about reluctance on my part to come along with this legislation. It is certainly not a reluctance. The preparation of this legislation requires more thought than any other material I have brought before the Dáil. It is not the simple act of brilliantly cutting the Gordian knot and letting things take their course. We are dealing with human problems, and if there is delay, it is for no reason other than that we are trying to establish co-operation in this community, that we as a community are faced with problems and we must try to solve these problems in co-operation with one another.

The other idea of those who would rush this legislation through the House is that the Bill itself will be a panacea, a sudden cure for all our ills. Industrial relations legislation will go as far as this Government think it should go in providing machinery in which a democracy can solve the problems which arise in the field of industry. The problem is to seek solutions to the common problem, while protecting the rights of the interests involved and preserving the interest of our democracy as we know it. Most people have by now given mature thought to the role the Government should play in the field of industrial relations. There is a whole range of roles from the extreme of regimentation, which is neither possible nor desirable here, to the other extreme of total laissez faire and see what happens.

We have seen governments in other countries go from one extreme to the other—the regimentation of the authoritarian society to the passive attitude of the more liberal community. We know from our own experience that Irish people will not be regimented. All our past history indicates to us that it would be very foolish to try to force people to agree to solutions which they do not accept. This does not mean, of course, that we accept the opposite, that we let everything happen and stand idly by and see what the result will be. I think we are all satisfied that we must have certain common aims to improve our national prosperity and achieve our national aims. There are so many conflicting sectional interests in the field that the Government must exercise their influence, and this either morally or statutorily, and act as a co-ordinator and a guide in the national interest. This is what our position is. We have created machinery and we intend, if we can, to improve upon it so that the free negotiation which we accept as a principle can take place and take place without doing too much damage to the common good. Recently, with this machinery available, the Government have from time to time stated guidelines of principles which should influence both workers and employers in their dealings with each other.

Deputy Dillon said that when we commented on the Labour Court's guidelines we were changing our minds about the three per cent guideline which had been established by us on the basis of the best economic advice available. The very statement of that principle of three per cent was what we considered the duty of the Govern ment at the time: to guide, for the common good, the negotiations which were going on. It was based on the best economic advice and was submitted for the opinion of an independent body representative of many sections of the community and certainly of both the employers and workers. It was suggested that, when the Labour Court came along and set out guidelines, which the Labour Court in its wisdom saw, not from the economic standpoint but from the point of view of industrial unrest and the prevention of industrial unrest, we had changed from the principles we laid down.

If I may read a paragraph from the comments issued by the Government on the Labour Court's guidelines, it will explain what our position was:

The Labour Court statement does not invalidate either the statement issued by the Government on the 8th March, 1966, or the reference to income increases made by the Minister for Finance in his Budget statement. It remains true that if income increases, which in the aggregate exceed the rise in national production, are not offset by improvements in productivity, it will lead to inflation of costs and prices, make our goods and services more expensive and hard to sell, and bring about a risk of loss of production and employment.

Mr. Donegan

Of course, it does invalidate it. That is merely an expression of opinion.

Dr. Hillery

These guidelines do not say that the consequences will not be as predicted.

Mr. Donegan

But 90 out of 100 men would say that your statement, after the Labour Court statement, does, in fact, invalidate your previous statement.

Dr. Hillery

I am talking only for one man. It may be easy for Deputy Donegan to say 90 out of 100. My background training, which may not be considered suitable by everyone for this job, was scientific. I refer to that because the Deputy made some reference to it when speaking of the inadvisability of having a professional man in this chair. May I say that, even if he made a good case for a different type of training, we have all sorts in this Party and, if it is necessary, we will be able to change without a change of Government.

Mr. Donegan

It would be jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

Dr. Hillery

I was speaking about legislation which is coming. We will leave this legislation for industrial relations because the House will have a chance of discussing it as soon as possible and the delays, if there are any, are due to the mature consideration being given by everybody to the solution of the problems. I hope to introduce that legislation before this session ends but consideration of it by everybody involved has already begun.

Legislation is pending, too, for Córas Tráchtála Teoranta and many of the points raised about exports will be dealt with then. At this stage I should like to comment on the announcement of the forthcoming removal, in November, of the British temporary charge on imports. I welcome, of course, the certainty our producers now have that this will be removed on a particular date. Irish industry will be encouraged to renew the trend of exports which was so encouraging to all of us in recent years. An earlier removal of this would have been more welcome, as the temporary charge on imports was, and continues to be, a serious handicap to Irish industry. I will continue the market development schemes in operation while the temporary charge is in force.

The certainty of its removal is welcome but the fact of its being there at all was, as I have said, a most unwelcome and serious handicap to Irish industry.

In the Budget Speech of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer yesterday, he described certain further measures which he considered necessary to add to those already in force for the solution of the British balance of payments problem and the strengthening of sterling. The measure he has taken, which affects us, is the introduction of a voluntary restraint on direct investment here by British firms and on the portfolio investments of institutional investors. This restraint also applies to Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. We heard of these proposals beforehand, on Saturday, and the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance made immediate strong representations to the British Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the exclusion of this country from the arrangement.

It was pointed out to us that Ireland has a strong interest in the success of the British measures to achieve balance of payments equilibrium and that failure to achieve the British objectives would have far more serious long-term reactions on Ireland than any effects which would result now from the voluntary restraint proposed. It was also pointed out that Australia, the country principally affected, had acquiesced in the proposals; that it would be extremely difficult for Britain to justify the exclusion of Ireland, a non-Commonwealth country, when the flow of capital to Ireland was the same as the flow to New Zealand, a Common-wealth country which had acquisced also in these proposals. It was pointed out also that it was unlikely that the restrictive effect would be significant and that the restraint would not last for more than a year or two. They agreed, however, to have further discussions about the effects of the programme on our economy. We have impressed, and will continue to impress, on the British authorities the importance of our being able to secure adequate capital to sustain a high rate of growth.

I do not believe that the effects of these proposals on the Irish economy will be at all serious. It may, however, be necessary for the Industrial Development Authority to review their immediate programme for promotional activities in Britain. I might add, and I think the Minister for Finance has already suggested, that the proposals and the situation which may arise from them call for increased support by Irish investors for domestic development. There is need for a special effort now for increased savings for investment within this country.

Industrial development was dealt with widely throughout the debate. As I announced, we are having a complete re-appraisal of the programme and this is being done by an international firm of consultants who do this work for many countries. I think Deputies can await that re-appraisal and any proposals for new measures which will arise out of it.

There were some suggestions such as having a nominee on the board of an industry to which we are giving grants, or having Irish nationals on the board. My comment on that would be that we are trying to attract industry, and to encourage people to set up industries here, to expand here the industries they have in other places. We have to face pretty strong competition from other countries with industrial development programmes, and it is unreal to think of saying to these people: "We will put a curb on you; we will make sure you do not fail; we will make sure you will not trick us." We are trying to attract industries, and in this, Foras Tionscal and the IDA are being exceptionally successful, considering how careful they have to be, and how hard they have to compete with other people.

The failure of companies was also spoken of. That failure is not due to Government policy. The failure of any firm is due to commercial reasons. If you say: "We will have no firm set up unless we are guaranteed success", you will have no firms set up. If Government policy is to be judged on the after-life of these firms, it should be judged on the success of individual firms, on the expansion of those which are successful, and on their increasing exports performance which I mentioned when introducing this Estimate. As I said at that time, the losses in public money are negligible compared with the benefits in terms of employment, export markets and general economic advances.

Deputy Donegan struck a few blows but they did not all land on me. I did not feel them anyway. One that was taken up afterwards was that the giving of grants to industries which later failed was influenced by Government Ministers who wanted to get factories in their own constituencies. I have no doubt that every TD wants to get an industry in his own constituency and will do everything he can to get one, but I have information here which shows that the number of failures in the period of office of the other Government was proportionate to the number of failures in our time. If it was due to Ministers interfering in our time, then it was equally so during their time. However, I am more charitable, and I believe no one interferes excessively.

Mr. Donegan

Who chalked the failures on the scoreboard?

Dr. Hillery

To say that Foras Tionscal will give grants because of pressure from Minister is a reflection on the integrity of the Board of Foras Tionscal, and it is a reflection on the commonsense of the promoters of industry to suggest that they would invest enormous amounts of money and go to some place where a Minister sends them. I hope I have said enough to dismiss the idea that Foras Tionscal are influenced by Minister. If more needs to be said, I will say it. The story is the same whatever Government are in office. The failures are there to be seen.

The House might be interested in knowing about these failures. Since the industrial development programme began, 22 firms failed, representing £915,915, or seven per cent of the total paid for ordinary grants. Of those 22, nine were or are being acquired by other firms, leaving 13 firms which might be called outright failures. The amount of the grants paid to those 13 was £499,432, representing 4.1 per cent of the total grants. The total number of grant-aided industries was 282 so that 13 failures represent 4½ per cent of those set up. There were 22 failures, but nine factories were acquired by other firms so, in fact, there were really 13 complete failures.

As I said when I was introducing this estimate, the benefits so far outweigh the financial losses that we must be prepared to face the risk of losing some money. In fact, most of the time my worry is not about the money but about the disappointment to the workers, but of course, no one can guarantee that every commercial venture will be a success.

There was one point I would have made if I wanted to be argumentative about failures. The time to say that you should not set up a factory is before the factory is set up. I can find no record of Deputy Donegan or the Fine Gael Party objecting to the Potez project when it was first announced. I remember many years ago there was a surgeon in a certain city. He never gave his opinion until after an operation and then he said: "I thought so". He developed a great reputation as a diagnostician.

Mr. Donegan

I will deal with the Minister's remarks on the Industrial Grants Bill later.

Dr. Hillery

In relation to the statement I said I would give to the House, the position about the Potez industry is not such as would allow me to make a definitive statement. As I said in answer to a question in the House last week, at the moment it would be inappropriate to make a statement about discussions which are going on at the present stage. The position has not changed, but I will inform the House about it as soon as I can do so. Deputy Dillon raised the point that this might happen during the long recess. You cannot have it every way. If there is any information available before we rise for the long recess, I will let the House have it, and if not, I will inform the House when we meet after the long recess.

Mr. Donegan

That is fair enough.

Dr. Hillery

Before I leave that question, my diagnosis of the criticism of the failures would be summed up like this: Deputies would agree to industrialisation if no one took or got credit, but that would be expecting a lot from human nature.

Mr. James Tully

Will the Minister give credit where credit is due?

Dr. Hillery

I was just thinking: "Sweet are the uses of adversity"— if you can call being in Opposition adversity.

Mr. Donegan

The Government are in adversity at the moment.

Dr. Hillery

Deputy Tully claimed credit for Tynagh and Deputy Donegan claimed credit for some other place.

Mr. James Tully

I did not claim credit for Tynagh.

Dr. Hillery

Some other Deputy claimed credit for some money given by the Minister.

Mr. James Tully

It was the Irish Transport and General Workers Union.

Dr. Hillery

There is no credit for the person who gives the money. It is the person who asks for it who gets the credit.

Mr. James Tully

If they did not think the money was necessary, they would not ask for it.

Dr. Hillery

When you are over there, you can claim credit for success. You can say that the home manufacturers should be dealt with more favourably by the Minister, but in the next sentence you can say that the foreign manufacturers should be given tax free access to the home market. That would blow the home manufacturers sky high.

There were many points raised by Deputies which I shall answer. I am sorry one Deputy saw fit to make sweeping allegations of inefficiency on the part of civil servants. The efficiency of the Department is the responsibility of the Minister and if there is any inefficiency in it, he is accountable for it. I can assure the Deputy that this is a matter which is constantly in the Minister's mind. The nature of the task makes it just impossible to carry inefficiency in a busy Department. I do not want to make a statement about the Civil Service. All I want to say is that the sweeping statement made by the Deputy is, of course, not true.

I have already told Deputy Dillon that the Gardiner Street and Werburgh Street men's employment exchanges have recently been decorated. The women's employment exchanges are not so good. The Parliamentary Secretary referred to four new replacement offices. He meant that new replacement offices are being provided within the employment exchanges. These will be segregated from the employment exchanges proper and will be specially decorated and comfortably furnished. It is not intended to have any counters or grills, to have open spaces but to provide privacy by having partitioned areas.

Deputy Dillon felt that you just cannot get a man until you have a job which he can come into. I said in the House recently that with the changes in employment, we just cannot pick the man for the job. We will have to train him first. If he is already trained in a job which has disappeared, we will have to retrain him for another job. The services which the Parliamentary Secretary is handling will cover vocational guidance and training as well as replacement.

Deputy O'Connell asked about the type of men who will be officers. They will be appointed at deputy manager level and will be retrained in up-to-date techniques which are being practised at the moment in OECD countries. There will be replacement centres in the cities of Cork, Galway and Waterford as well as in Dublin. The Deputy also asked me to minimise the incidence of redundancy. Employers will be expected to adopt a humane approach in dealing with this. Everything will be done to prevent redundancy by means of internal transfers, early retirals and normal wastage. As employers have to pay lump sums when there is redundancy, this will discourage them from making cruel decisions or causing unnecessary hardship.

I had a look through the report of An Foras Tionscal to see if it could be true that the IDA were concerned with large industries only. I find, on looking through this report, that from the size of the grants, most of those are smaller industries. This is just another sweeping statement that is not accurate. The same Deputy who mentioned that said there was no organisation to help small industries. It might not be known that the Irish National Productivity Committee run a special service for small and medium sized industries.

Mr. James Tully

Does the Minister mean there is a bigger number of smaller industries helped or a greater amount of money given?

Dr. Hillery

The point made was that the bigger factories were receiving more money.

Mr. James Tully

It was the increased amount of money the Deputy was referring to. He said it was far greater for the bigger industries but that there was a bigger number of smaller industries.

Dr. Hillery

I think Deputy O'Connell was talking about the raising of capital and the issuing of licences for the export of skins. I said to him at the time that this was a matter for the Department of Agriculture. Those licences are freely issued by the Department of Industry and Commerce on the production of evidence from the Department of Agriculture that the dead meat which appertains to the skins is for export. I want to say that 100 per cent of the skins belonging to the export meat trade are issued on licences once the evidence is received from the Department of Agriculture. Some percentage of the skins for domestic slaughter are allowed but this is a temporary measure. I am quite sure the Deputy will appreciate the control is to protect employment and industry at home.

Deputy Dillon was worried about allowing the State to take charge of all of us. This is something which anybody who has given thought to the situation developing will remark on. I do not want Deputy Dillon to get away with the idea that the Government are causing more and more State intervention. As I said somewhere recently, there is often a very convincing case made for less extensive State activity but more disturbing is the insistence with which people clamour for greater State activity. This means intrusion in their lives. I do not know what can be done about it.

Deputy Dillon argued up to a point, and then left it in the air, that if you exhort people, everything will go right, that if you tell people to do things, they will do them. That is not my experience and I am sure if Deputy Dillon were in Government, it would not be his. Therefore, certain measures are necessary. He spoke about price control and its effects. He said we had told manufacturers: "You cannot make profits". What we set out to do, and I think we are doing it successfully, was to prevent people passing on every cost to the consumer. There must be other ways of absorbing increased costs.

Mr. Donegan

What about Gouldings?

Dr. Hillery

Deputy Dillon said that, of course, the answer might be to let them increase their prices. But then Deputy Dillon said you cannot let them do that because it would put up the cost to the farmers. He cannot have it both ways. I have not told them they cannot increase their prices. I have said that in this situation, with a spiral of prices and costs, they shall not put up their prices without giving thought to it and without our having something to say about it. Neither did I say I would let them put up their prices. I said: "I shall examine it", and I set up a Prices Advisory Body. I think it was right to set up a body to see if they are justified in putting up their prices. If the Advisory Body says they are justified, then their prices will be put up.

Mr. Donegan

A profit of £400,000 has been turned into a loss of £150,000.

Dr. Hillery

I do not accept that that is because they were not allowed to put up their prices.

Mr. Donegan

What else?

Dr. Hillery

Deputy Dillon said we could not allow them to put up their prices. Sweet are the uses of adversity. You can speak with many voices when you are over there.

Mr. Donegan

I am speaking only with my own voice.

Dr. Hillery

That is a big responsibility.

Mr. Donegan

At times.

Dr. Hillery

As regards Castlecomer collieries, production there is continuing pending the outcome of explorations, which the Dáil permitted me to finance, for the extraction of coal. I cannot give any information now. I expect to have a report in two or three months on the experiment.

Mr. James Tully

Does the Minister think it is going well?

Dr. Hillery

I have not heard from them at all.

Mr. James Tully

That sounds bad.

Dr. Hillery

Perhaps it is a good sign. On the question of the Dundalk Engineering Works, this could have been more appropriately left by Deputy Donegan for discussion on another Estimate. In our policy in relation to the Dundalk Engineering Works, the Government have been guided by the highest independent expert opinion at every stage. It was with great reluctance that the step was taken but all the facts, all the expert opinion we could get, persuaded us that the company, as operated, had not a commercial future. The decision we took was not to shut down the works.

Mr. Donegan

To sell.

Dr. Hillery

It was to put in a receiver whose instructions were so framed as to safeguard as far as possible the employment situation. Full consideration was given to expert opinion before any decision was taken.

Mr. Donegan

How does the Minister expect existing companies to continue to pay the principal and interest on the losses of Heinkel?

Dr. Hillery

The Deputy now is arguing the merits of certain individuals. I do not think I should go into it.

Mr. Donegan

All right; but it is something the Minister must remember.

Dr. Hillery

The Government were advised by experts in this field.

Mr. Donegan

I think they were wrong and I think the Minister is wrong. I say that in all friendliness.

Dr. Hillery

I mentioned the prices body on the fertiliser industry. There is another body examining the brewers' prices. I expect to have reports shortly on both.

Mr. Donegan

In the meantime, the losses continue.

Dr. Hillery

Despite the Government's feeling that the best form of price control is competition, when a situation arises in the country which the Government feel merits price control, everybody must bear the burden.

Mr. Donegan

Some must be scapegoats.

Dr. Hillery

Fair consideration will be given to all. There is nothing wrong in a person making a fair profit but excess profits are wrong. No action taken by the Government will damage a firm.

Mr. Donegan

Will you recoup their losses in retrospect?

Donnchadh Ó Briain

Did Deputy Donegan not get his chance?

Mr. James Tully

Those people are not exactly applying for home assistance.

Dr. Hillery

In relation to Tynagh, the information I have given is information the company made public. It is available to any Deputy. Any additional information is confidential and I could not give it here. I am not in a position to confirm Deputy Tully's estimate of the state of Tynagh. I have no reason to disagree with him. There has been a marked influence on some foreign prospectors, who are well informed in these matters, by the discoveries at Tynagh.

I should like to refer to our ratification by legislation of the Geneva Convention on the Continental Shelf. All I can say is that if there are delays it is not merely a minerals matter. The Convention covers fisheries, pollution of the water, navigational hazards and other matters involving a number of Departments. It is only recently that the comprehensive proposals have come to us.

Mr. James Tully

Surely there is an international pattern?

Dr. Hillery

Only some European countries have ratified the Convention, including Britain, Denmark, France, the Netherlands and Portugal. The absence of legislation has not prevented exploration so far and I gather that some exploration has begun. We want the legislation to make regular the availability of facilities and to enable this State to grant rights.

The question of factory inspectors was mentioned. A report on this matter is published annually in accordance with the Factories Act and gives details of the number of inspections and of the number of prosecutions taken against owners who failed to comply with the provisions of the Act. It is the aim of the inspectors to inspect factories each year and this is being achieved in 95 cases out of 100. Many factories are re-visited when the inspectors consider it necessary. In the year ended 30th September, 1965, 11,570 premises came within the scope of the Act and the total number of visits was 16,748.

I do not think the comments made on the inspectors and their activities were quite fair. The inspectors wish to enforce the provisions of the Act only to ensure that accidents are prevented from taking place. Their advice and guidance is frequently sought and, of course, freely given. If any Deputy wants particulars of the number of prosecutions and so on, they are available in the report of the factories inspections. I would say that the inspectors—and I mentioned this to the House before—have time and again expressed disappointment with the slow progress in setting up safety committees within the factories. These could appreciably help in reducing the incidence of accidents.

Deputy Dowling mentioned gimmicks in advertising and the protection of housewives from these gimmicks. The law as we have it protects a person against being sold short weight. If a substance is advertised as something, then it must be that. Further protection, by making it obligatory on people to describe what is in packets, is something which the House has asked me several times to introduce. I have told the House that we are keeping this under observation. The pressure on the staff available to me, and the priorities which I have, would not suggest that I should go ahead at this time with this legislation and I think we will have to depend on the consuming public becoming a little more critical of the great claims made by manufacturers and sellers of goods. Deputy Dillon says that these big combines coming into the retail trade came in because of the two and a half per cent turnover tax. This is an old fallacious argument—post hoc ergo propter hoc, anything that happens after an event is because of it. That is the only comment I will make except to say that the Government are keeping an eye on the acquisition of retail outlets by people outside the country and this, too, will be constantly renewed and reviewed by the Government.

As I said when starting, any questions which have been raised and which I have not dealt with now, will be dealt with by legislation which is pending in the near future.

Vote put and agreed to.