Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 5 Jul 1966

Vol. 223 No. 12

Committee on Finance. - Imports (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, 1966: Second Stage.

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Dr. Hillery)

I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time.

The purpose of the Bill is to provide powers which will be necessary in order to implement certain provisions of the Free Trade Area Agreement with Britain relating to duty-free licensing and Rules of Origin and to provide enabling powers in connection with tariff concessions for certain goods of Northern Ireland origin.

The Agreement provides for the continuance at reducing rates, and for a limited period, of the ten per cent preference given under the 1938 Agreement to British goods when licences are issued for the importation of goods at a reduced rate of duty. This was provided for in the Finance (Agreement with the United Kingdom) Act. 1938 and the relevant provision ceased to have effect on 1st July, 1966. The Bill therefore gives power to issue licences in which different rates of duty may be specified for goods originating in different countries.

In pursuance of the policy of closer co-operation with Northern Ireland, the Government propose to give tariff concessions on Northern Ireland goods with certain specified exceptions. The proposal is to reduce the duty by 20 per cent on 1st July, 1966, compared with ten per cent in the case of British goods, and by ten per cent annually after that—the position to be reviewed in 1971. The initial concessions are provided for in the Government order which has been made to fix the new rates of duty on British goods under the Trade Agreement. However, the procedure for making such orders is unduly cumbersome for the normal administration of the concessions and the provision now proposed, which will enable me to vary them with the consent of the Minister for Finance, by a more informal process will greatly facilitate the operation of the scheme.

Under present Irish rules, manufactured goods imported from Britain are regarded as being of British origin if they were manufactured there, and if a specified percentage of the cost of production was the result of work done in Britain or in Ireland. The specified percentage is 25 per cent for most goods but in some cases it is 50 per cent or 75 per cent.

As a result of discussions with Irish industry, provision was made in the Free Trade Area Agreement for certain changes in the Irish rules, in order to protect Irish industry more effectively against unfair competition from goods produced in third countries which receive insufficient processing in Britain. The changes are to raise the specified percentage from 25 per cent to 50 per cent for footwear, paint and furniture, and, for jute goods, to lay down a rule that the goods should be fully manufactured from the raw fibre either in Britain or in Ireland.

I already have power under the Finance (Agreement with the United Kingdom) Act, 1938, to make regulations prescribing the proportion of the value of an article which must be the result of labour within a particular country, in order that the goods may be treated as manufactured in that country. That Act does not, however, empower me to prescribe rules of the type decided upon for jute goods, and it will be necessary to obtain new powers for this purpose. The Bill provides, therefore, that I shall have power to make regulations prescribing the conditions which must be satisfied in any country before goods can be regarded for customs purposes as originating in that country. The provision in the Bill is in general terms in case it should become necessary in the future, as a result of developments in international trade, to prescribe rules of origin for goods from other countries.

I commend the Bill to the favourable consideration of the Dáil.

Mr. Donegan

It was inevitable that, even though the Free Trade Agreement was heralded by the Government Ministers who negotiated it as a wonderful step forward and something which should be extremely palatable to all of us, in the present framework of Irish industry, it would prove a difficult pill to swallow, once the sugar coating had been removed, since the whole framework of industrial production over the years had been the establishment of industries protected behind tariff walls and designed merely as supply industries for our own people.

I have had occasion in this House to point to the fact, not once but several times, because of its extreme relevancy, that the first encouragement given to industrial production for export over the whole country, excluding the undeveloped areas, and the first grants for new factories were given by the inter-Party Government in 1956-57. It was that Government who gave the concession of freedom from income tax on exports. It was Deputy Norton, God rest him, who first introduced the Industrial Grants Act to provide grants for industries all over the country. The Opposition at that time fought strenuously and voted against all these measures. But that is now merely historical. It does, however, point the fact that over the years the Fianna Fáil Government have adhered to the idea of a supply industry for our own people. That philosophy and that policy are now out of date. We have now got to face the chill wind of competition.

Whilst the pill may, in the last analysis, mark a step forward into our industrial future, it is, at the same time, a pill which must be swallowed, albeit an unpleasant pill once the sugar of the ministerial statements—I do not include in that my friend, the Minister for Industry and Commerce —had dissolved away. We must, however, face up to reality. We have entered into a Free Trade Agreement with Britain, an agreement necessary because of the move towards liberalisation of trade in Europe, and we must accept the consequences of that action. This Bill is merely one cog in the machine. It is an enabling Bill to help the Minister to do certain things. Similar Bills will have to be passed over the next few years in order that free trade can be safely negotiated, or negotiated in such fashion as to entail the least interference with Irish industry and the least danger to employment in Irish industry.

Let us remember we have to absorb the numbers leaving the land by placing more in industrial employment. In 1965, we had 7,000 fewer people in employment as compared with 1964, notwithstanding the fact that we had increased the numbers employed in industry by 7,000. The numbers leaving the land stood at 14,000 and we failed to produce sufficient jobs to absorb those 14,000, despite the infamous promise of the present Taoiseach, when out of office, that Fianna Fáil would produce 100,000 new jobs.

I am pleased to see that, as a result of this measure, there will be some alleviation of the pressure that would have been brought to bear upon the footwear industry, the furniture industry and the paint industry. I asked a question last week as to the numbers employed in the footwear industry. I am particularly interested in this industry because over half the footwear operatives in the country are employed in my constituency. Of 6,000 employed in the footwear industry, almost 900 were unemployed. That is not in good accord and the fact that there has been a dealing where these people are concerned, which obviously resulted from negotiation between Governments and Ministers of different States, is something I welcome.

It was clear, too, that the furniture industry would be in serious trouble if it had to face the full blast of competition without some rhythm of tariff reductions. Certain people in the industry indicated their real fears that there would be considerable unemployment. It is welcome that under this Bill there will be right through the period of dismantling tariffs a continuing advantage of ten per cent in respect of certain goods from Northern Ireland. That is a good idea. The future of Ireland is tied North and South and, while this may be something that may aggravate some of our difficulties during the period of change, the final result will be to bring all Ireland a little closer industrially and even nationally. That will be a good thing.

There are some things that should be brought to the attention of the House. On Thursday, 23rd June, I asked the Minister the total value of the grants approved by Foras Tionscal for industry. The answer I got was that grants approved totalled £34.7 million and the amount paid out was £15.9 million. By a simple sum in subtraction—the Minister need not do it; I have done it for him—a figure of £18.8 million is left. I do not offer this as any criticism of either the Government or the Minister, but the Minister knows that the amount allocated to Foras Tionscal this year is £4 million, or £500,000 less than last year. It seems to me that, if we have approved of £18.8 million, which we have not paid out, and our allocation this year is £4 million, and the Taoiseach has indicated there will be no supplementary allocations in present circumstances, it will be quite a few years before we adapt ourselves and before our new industries have got under way to such an extent as to provide sufficient jobs to replace those leaving agriculture. At this rate of expenditure, it will take us a few years before there is any great improvement or any great impact.

I know that £4 million is quite a lot of money. There have been occasions when I have been critical of spectacular failures, but we have already approved, but not paid, £18.8 million in grants, including adaptation grants, and therefore the process looks to me like a 4½ year job. Moreover Foras Tionscal will surely continue week by week to approve of further adaptation grants and grants for new factories. These will be necessary if we are to compete successfully. If one takes the rhythm of tariff reduction as against the amount of money being put into adaptation grants and the amount approved in grants for new industries, then we are not moving fast enough. There may be hard times so far as employment and everything else is concerned before we reach the stage of adapting ourselves for the blast of competition when we have had several reductions of ten per cent in our tariffs moving towards freer trade.

I asked the Minister last week how the expansion in the private sector of industry and commerce indicated that the Second Programme can be achieved this year while considerable bank credit is unavailable. The simple fact on bank credit last year is that the amount of money available for the private sector was exactly the amount taken back in repayment from people who had got loans. The Government took all the new money. The indications for this year are that they are going to take £28 million compared with £31 million last year. With the low volume of new money, it is quite possible they will take more new money than will become available and that all that will be available for the private sector is whatever somebody else gives back.

Adaptation grants are at the rate of 25 per cent. That leaves the industrialist to find 75 per cent in the shape of new capital or from profits, bank loans or loans from some other sources. If you take the rhythm of our reductions and the possible expansion of our industrial effort that can take place, this means that the tide on one side is going to get out faster than it will come in on the other side. I hope we will not reach the stage in the next few years where the new jobs will not be available and when we look at the figures for jobs as distinct from the unemployment figures, we will have to record the sad fact that there will be fewer people in employment for the next three or four years than there were in each preceding year. It is relevant at this stage to point out we had a failure last year as compared with the year before and there seems to be no reason to believe we can change our pattern spectacularly in the short term. I am confident in the long term that the influx at certain periods of money from abroad to exploit the boys and girls we have here——

Mr. Corish

I know what the Deputy means but he should use a different word.

Mr. Donegan

I do not see anything wrong with it.

Mr. Dillon

It is almost as bad as talking about cheap labour.

Mr. Donegan

You get an industrialist who wants to come here for profits. Maybe that is a nasty word.

Mr. O'Leary

Very nasty.

Mr. Donegan

I do not see anything wrong with it. I believe it is essential. It is something that produces the incentive to the industrialist to come here.

Mr. Dillon

They are trying to say you used the word "exploit" rather than "employ". Do not let them get away with it.

Mr. Donegan

I rejoice in the word. It is the job of trade union officials, such as Deputy O'Leary, Deputy Larkin and Deputy Cluskey, to see to it that the worker gets a fair return for his labour. Nobody can criticise them for so doing. I hear a lot of cod here about the irresponsibility of the trade unions, of the workers and of the employers. I have said here many times that when a trade union official goes in to talk across the table with the employer, it is his job to get the maximum for his members. It is the employer's job to get the maximum of profit, being at the same time fair and decent to his workers.

An Ceann Comhairle

And it is my job to get the maximum of relevancy.

Mr. Donegan

Deputy Corish knows as well as I do that that is the pattern of industrial relations. I will return now to strict relevancy, Sir. This Bill is consequent on the free trade negotiations. It is something we here accept. But we must realise that in the opinion of many, we are going to have difficult times over a period of three, four or five years before the liberalisation of trade helps us to the stage of having more employment and a better standard of living. My fear is that the Government are not making a sufficient effort, either financially or legislatively, to see to it that the tide does not go out faster on one side than it comes in on the other.

Mr. O'Leary

The Minister comes here looking for the authorisation of the House for certain measures which will make his task easier in carrying out some of the provisions of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Deputy Donegan and his Party did not give him much trouble in passing the original Agreement last year and he will get as little trouble putting this enabling legislation through. The problem he is up against, and which he realises in bringing in this measure, is that many of our tariffs protecting Irish industry over the years were built up in a very haphazard way. They came about in piecemeal fashion over the years. They were not built up on a conscious policy but were added to since the thirties to give us what expansion of industries we have had. It is presumably in deference to the manner of erection of many of our tariffs that the Minister finds he needs flexibility in some cases in dealing with their reduction.

Irish management in the past have not been too worried about making their firms efficient to the extent that the reports of the NIEC on the situation in Irish industry must leave most of us unhappy about our future under free trade. If that is so, an Agreement which sees our tariffs reducing over the years—by and large with one or two minor exceptions—by jumps of ten per cent is indeed a very radical way of bringing Irish industry to its senses. Let us hope that this cure for the inefficiency of Irish industry will not prove mortal for the patient and that many of our people who have invested their lives in these industries and whose families depend on them will not become innocent victims of the inefficiency of Irish management presided over by an Irish Government in the years of tariff protection.

We see that the Northern Ireland Government will get extra preferential treatment in this reduction because of the Government's desire for the closest possible integration. All of us on all sides favour closer relations between all parts of this country. However, we must be worried about one thing, that is, that British capital, which has been gaining an increasingly strong grip in this part of the country, virtually owns the North of Ireland, and that any native industry that is left there is in a very small way of business at the moment. Most of the large concerns are under British control. Therefore, in considering any further co-operation with Northern Ireland which would appear to lessen the evil effects of Partition on our economy, even with that laudable purpose, the Government must be wary of the complete dominance of British capital.

We would hope that the procedure which the Minister envisages here which calls for a more informal process between himself and the Minister for Finance will at all times take into account the interests of Irish industry which would be affected, because there may be the habit of treating the problems of Irish industry in too cavalier a fashion, and Ministers may be too anxious to fulfil the grand design of their tariff reductions and not be over-worried about the problems that may occur for Irish industries, problems which, let it be said, were the chief concern of our Party in opposing this blanket measure in the first instance. In substance, our opposition was based on the fact that a blanket elimination of tariffs would prove tremendously risky for much of Irish industry. Nothing that has happened since the coming into effect of that Agreement has changed our attitude on that. We are gravely concerned, with our close identity with and accurate knowledge of the circumstances of Irish industry, that the situation is extremely shaky underneath the superficial optimism engendered in official reports. The main reason for our opposition to the blanket reduction of tariffs was our anxiety about the state of Irish industry.

In regard to footwear, paint and furniture, it has been decided that the percentage would go from 25 per cent to 50 per cent. There is reference here also—and this is extremely important for Irish industry—to unfair dumping. We pointed out in the course of the debate last year that even a temporary advancement gained by competitors in this sphere of dumping could prove extremely dangerous, and in fact fatal to a small-scale Irish industry, where as with countries with larger industries, it might prove to be an incentive to more competitiveness. However, on the small scale on which some of our industries operate, dumping could swamp them over a very short period. It is important that no loophole is left which could damage our industry to a very large extent.

There is a point in the Minister's explanatory remarks about which I am puzzled. He said that:

Under the present Irish rules, manufactured goods imported from Britain are regarded as being of British origin if they were manufactured there, and if a specified percentage of the cost of production was the result of work done in Britain or in Ireland.

Mr. Corish

Does that paragraph relate to Northern Ireland?

Dr. Hillery

Origin within the area, Ireland and Britain, the new Free Trade Area. Some of the work could be done in Ireland and the process could be completed in Britain. The work done in Ireland would count.

Mr. Dillon

That is, if we brought in jute and turned it into cloth, we could send the cloth to Britain and they could send us back the sacks. The work done is counted.

Dr. Hillery

If the earlier process was in a third country——

Mr. O'Leary

I see. In regard to the consultations that will take place with the interest involved, while it may be, as he says, convenient for him that a more informal process would be brought in, we would feel, even though we believe the free trade area envisages a bleak future for us, that some degree of extra consultation would be absolutely necessary. At least the trade unions involved should be forewarned where any difference in tariffs other than those laid down under the agreement is contemplated and, in some cases, as the Minister has done in regard to furniture, and so on, we may be able to get one or two points to keep us away from the breaking point.

Mr. Dillon

I am fascinated to hear a young Deputy like Deputy O'Leary speak quite innocently of the tariffs that were built up since the 1930s as giving us the industries we have today. It fascinates me because it occurs to me that many men of his age believe that. We are quite oblivious of the fact that the first ten years of the existence of this State were largely devoted to the promotion and protection of existing industries.

Mr. O'Leary

Guinness's and Jacob's.

Mr. Dillon

No, that is the interesting thing. That is one of the myths growing under our eyes. It is like being in a cavern and watching stalactites and stalagmites growing. Some of them come down from the roof and some of them go up from the floor. Does the Deputy really believe there was no boot or shoe industry in this country before the tariffs?

Mr. Corish

Deputy Dillon ought not to put words into Deputy O'Leary's mouth, as he tried to do in regard to Deputy Donegan.

Mr. O'Leary

We are back in the depths of the cavern. I am listening with great attention.

Mr. Dillon

I do not want to say anything that will offend Deputy O'Leary or to say anything critical of him. All I am interested in is that we are in the presence of the growth of a myth. Myths are a very important part of our life. We were talking just recently of the folklore institute. This is the industrial folklore of Ireland growing in our presence, the mythology.

Mr. O'Leary

Somebody should preserve that.

Mr. Dillon

We have to give credit to Fianna Fáil. They are the most fecund parents of myths, with which they are perennially pregnant, of any political Party that has ever appeared in this country or any other country in the world. My cow recently had triplets.

Mr. O'Leary

We saw that in the wrong paper.

Mr. Dillon

But when Fianna Fáil proceed to have myths, they have them in litters. The boot and shoe industry existed in this country long before we had any tariffs at all. Governeys were making boots 80 years ago, but it was the tariff policy of the Cosgrave administration of the first decade of this country's existence which brought our boot and shoe industry into other spheres of the boot and shoe industry, brought it into what is commonly called in the trade the fashion end of the trade.

One would imagine, to hear Deputy O'Leary, that he believed that there was no fertiliser industry in this country. One of the first fertiliser industries in Europe was established in this country. The fertiliser industry was started in this country 100 years ago. I often wonder does a man of Deputy O'Leary's age ever realise that the Irish fertiliser industry was the first to exploit the potentialities of basic slag? They discovered it. They were using it, having imported the raw material from Britain, when Britain was throwing the raw material away. Our fertiliser industry recognised the phosphate content of the raw material and exploited it for the benefit of Irish agriculture.

I do not think it would be fair to Deputy O'Leary to say that he is contemptuous of the Jacob and Guinness industries. I agree that they are two great industries and in my young days one of the methods of teaching me geography was to bring me to O'Connell Bridge so that I could watch the Jacob goods going down to the North Wall. Has anybody else in this House had that experience? It used to be a very good way of teaching geography to children.

Mr. Larkin

And the hard wheat coming in.

Mr. Dillon

They do not use hard wheat to make biscuits; they use soft wheat. What is interesting is not of what they used to bake the biscuits or where the raw material came from, but that the produce of Irish hands and skill and genius went to every corner of the world, including Singapore. I remember that Singapore was the name on one of the consignments going to the North Wall. Java was another name and the whole Orient and South America were open to Irish exports. I was never in the dilemma of a certain Prime Minister of England who said that he had lived to be over 70 years of age and had never heard of that place. I read all of them from O'Connell Bridge.

That industry was built up in conditions of complete free trade. It developed in Dublin in competition with Huntley and Palmer and all the other manufacturers of Britain and the Continent, and it wiped them off the board. I do not see that we have any reason to speak apologetically if, in the face of the competition of the whole world, and using Irish barley, we could boast that we had the biggest brewery in the world in Dublin.

Deputy O'Leary will agree with me that the linen industry was an important industry. That industry grew up here long before tariffs were ever heard of. The woollen industry existed in this country and it is true to say that in the first decade of the existence of the State, a prudent scheme of tariffs was devised to stimulate and expand production. The fashion then was that if you were going to impose a tariff and increase the cost of something the people had to buy, there was a commission and before that tariff was imposed, careful consideration was given to the questions as to who was going to have to pay; was it going to press heavily on the poor; was it going to increase the cost of living and, if so, how much employment was it going to give; what capital was available to create the necessary expansion; and if there was an added burden, what compensatory payment was going to be made?

I am not so sure now, looking back over the history of industrial development in this country, that that was not the wiser way to do it. There would have been fewer strikes and less industrial unrest if we had consistently looked for experience in this matter, if we had based our expansion on these grounds, and if we had looked to see what impact these developments would have on the cost of living of our people. In this context, I want to direct the attention of the House, the Minister, and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Per Jacobson Foundation lecture. I wonder if they have read the last lecture given in Washington by Roussa, who was the assistant secretary to the Treasury in the United States Government.

Roussa described his experience of the vast economic expansion of the United States that has gone on through the past ten years. He admits that he dreaded the tremendous expansion of wealth which followed the economic expansion and feared that it would lead to events analogous to those that shattered the world in 1929. As this avalanche of wealth descended upon them, they found that private investments could not keep up with the rate of savings. In order to avoid the creation of inflation, they had to stimulate the export of capital to protect their own economy from the inflation that must have ensued.

He admits that this whole experience was terra incognita to them and to their most expert economic advisers and that as they advanced through this astonishing Golconda, they asked themselves the question: “What is the keystone of this whole structure; what is keeping the whole thing together; what is preventing the whole thing from collapsing in a catastrophe?” and he says the conclusion they came to and which he was concerned in the lecture to illustrate was that it was stability of prices, that the whole secret of their success was that, while wealth was growing in this unprecedented abundance, all through it the cost of living barely stirred.

An Ceann Comhairle

Very interesting, but scarcely relevant.

Mr. Dillon

Listen to me, a Cheann Comhairle. We are discussing the Imports (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, a Bill designed to protect and promote Irish industry. I believe I have not spoken a single word which is irrelevant to the protection and the promotion of Irish industry, not excluding my effort to shatter the myths, some of which I was apprehensive that Deputy O'Leary might have mistaken for facts.

Mr. O'Leary

I am duly corrected.

Mr. Dillon

I only want sympathetic understanding. I do not think it is right to associate industrial development in this country with high tariff protection or to persuade ourselves that high and promiscuous tariff protection and quota protection is the only method available to our people for making themselves self-sustained in industry. I think I may legitimately recall to the memory of the House that great industries existed here for which we have no reason to apologise that never knew any protection at all, that many other industries were created under the extremely moderate and controlled system of protection that obtained in this country up to 1932, and I am calling Roussa's lecture into the discussion, in the hope of persuading someone with an open mind like Deputy O'Leary rather than a convinced member of Fianna Fáil, that moderate and discriminating protection may be a very much more effective instrument in generating an enduring expansion of the economy which may provide a better livelihood for everybody—wage earner, salary earner, capitalist and farmer—than the kind of unplanned fatuous protectionism which I think has landed us in a very considerable dilemma as of the present time.

I noted with admiration the moderation and restraint of Deputy O'Leary's approach to this whole problem. I want to use rather more emphatic language. I think we are all underestimating this problem. I acknowledge that the Government have appointed the Parliamentary Secretary to deal with labour problems and I think that was a prudent, sensible and wise thing to do. I am glad it should be Deputy Flanagan. I have no doubt he will give conscientious and zealous attention to that particular assignment, so long as he is responsible for it, because I think it is a very important one. I do not anticipate this annual reduction of ten per cent in the higgledy-piggledy tariff structure we have in this country with equanimity and I make no apology at all for calling to mind again what I have said in this House not infrequently and which I was first taught by one of the most far-seeing industrial developers this country has ever known, that is, ex-Deputy Paddy McGilligan, one of the finest minds in Europe and one of the most far-seeing men ever concerned with industrial development in this country.

I well remember when we were in Government a question arising—I cannot remember precisely what it was—about some problem of redundancy and I think the late Deputy Bill Norton was taking a rather rumbustious line, as was natural—he was anxious to have this matter given the closest attention. I remember his being edified by the attitude of Deputy McGilligan, who was then, I think, Minister for Finance, who said he had learned a lesson when he put through the ESB Act. The lesson he learned was that you have no right to go to any man of middle age and give him a silver handshake and then tell him to do the best he can for himself; you have no right to go to a man who has invested the first 35 years of his life in learning a skill and giving him a year's salary and saying: "Now go out and root for yourself".

His view was that if the national interest demanded that you should go to a man of middle age and say: "Your job has become redundant", there are two courses open to you: one was to say to him: "You retain your salary and your pension rights or, if you are willing, but only if you are willing, if you recoil from the idea of a life of idleness, being paid your full wages and waiting for your pension date to come, we will put at your disposal industrial training in some other analogous branch of occupation at full wages until such time as you can take up another skilled job in some other industry".

I beg of Deputies to bear in mind that we may think it a handsome thing to go to a man of 47 or 48 years of age and give him a year's salary and say: "The national interest demands that your job should be extinguished and here is a year's salary. We think we are treating you handsomely". At first glance, it sounds handsome to give him £1,000, but, if you have two or three or four children and a wife and you are accustomed to earning £18 to £22 a week and are looking forward confidently to occupying that job until you are 65 and then getting a pension because you belong to a pension scheme, it is a desperate thing to be told when you are 47 or 48 or in your 50th year: "There is £1,000 and goodbye".

Therefore, I beg of the Minister for Industry and Commerce to take upon himself the duty of saying that the Government are resolved in the context of this Bill to instruct the Minister for Labour to accept as a guiding line the principle laid down by Mr. Paddy McGilligan, that is, that once a man has passed the age of 45, he is not to be thrown on the scrapheap, and a skilled man who has passed the age of 45 in permanent employment is thrown on the scrapheap if he is not offered the opportunity of training in another skilled occupation without the disruption of his whole family life. If that is accepted, then I think we can meet the other problems that arise, but do not let us underestimate those problems.

I remember a man coming to me, and I can give the Minister his name —I think he is in Heaven now—who ground spices. Oddly enough, the late Deputy Derrig was acting Minister for Industry and Commerce at the time. The present Taoiseach who was Minister for Industry and Commerce was in the Mater Hospital having his appendix out. I remember this man coming to me upstairs. I was not then leader of the Opposition but I was a pretty formidable critic of the Fianna Fáil Government. He told me he had never voted for me, for Cumann na nGaedheal or Fine Gael, that he had voted Fianna Fáil since the first day he had a vote. He always thought that Dev was wonderful.

"I set up a little business," he told me, "and they brought in some regulations and closed me up. I said: ‘If it is for the good of the country, very well. Dev would not do it otherwise.' I set up a second little business and it was doing nicely but I wasn't very long at it until they made more regulations and wiped me out again. I remember saying to myself: ‘If Dev did it, it must be right'.

"I started up a third business, grinding spices, and now they have published an order this morning giving Goodalls of London an exclusive right to grind spices in this country. I must go up now and nail up my doors again." I was not very apt to do this in those days but I remember going to see the Fianna Fáil Minister for Industry and Commerce. I was so shocked by the situation on this occasion that I went to the acting Minister, Deputy Derrig, as mild a man as ever cut throats or scuttled ships. He gave the usual Civil Service answer, that he would look into the matter. I remember raising it in this House afterwards because he did not know what to do, with Mr. Lemass in the Mater Hospital and he was shaking in his shoes in case he put a foot right or left and Lemass would eat him when he came back.

In the end I raised it in the House and the exclusive licence to Goodalls was qualified in favour of those who were already engaged in spice grinding in this country. God be good to the man for whom I did this. When the war broke out, he rang me up and said that I could have any spices I wanted for my shop in Ballaghaderreen. I am a long time in public life and have heard much about gratitude but I have never come across a more concrete way of showing gratitude. To my misfortune, I was not in the wholesale spice business and I did not avail of his offer, but at least he was prepared to do something practical to show his gratitude.

The point I want to make is: Let us not only concentrate on the problem involved for the redundant worker. Machinery can easily be devised to meet his case if it is done now. It will not be easy machinery to operate but we can devise it and we can ensure that no unjust hardship is involved. But when you come to the man with his own little business, the man grinding spices, employing 15 or 20 people, living comfortably with a nice house at Glasnevin or Drumcondra and a couple of children at school and a certain standard of living who suddenly finds that the business he was encouraged to go into by the Fianna Fáil Government, by the kind of specious promise to which Deputy O'Leary referred, is now no longer favoured.

He bustles off to the Department and asks: "What am I to do? It is not only my money I have invested; it is my life. I started this little business when I was 25. I am rising 60 now and you tell me I am not wanted in it." What do you say to him? Let Deputy Corry not restrain himself unduly or he will burst. I do not think the Deputy need worry about me. I took the precaution of getting a State pension, just as the Deputy did. He and I have made ample provision for ourselves. We shall each get £1,000 a year when we retire but I am anxious to ensure that the people for whom he and I are legislating will do as well for themselves as we have done for ourselves.

I am talking about the small business man who is wiped out and I know the Minister is sympathetic in this respect. I am not suggesting he would be reckless or ruthless in this matter but many of these things can be done practically and effectively if we face them in time and do not try to improvise frantically when they come upon us. What are we going to say to the man whose business is folding up and whose business, as may be the case in many instances, is largely made of processing, for example, the man grinding spices? A great part of his life is invested in his business, in his stock and so is the bulk of his earnings.

The market for what he is selling is destroyed. He suddenly finds his entire substance gone because the value of his stock has depreciated in the face of competition from incoming goods and the skill by which he lives is no longer usable because nobody wants it.

What I am begging the House to do is to face facts. While it may be good economics to say you cannot have omelettes without breaking eggs, it is not good sociology and I do not think Deputies should stand idly by while a middle-aged workman is effectively thrown on the scrapheap, or a skilled man of 50 years of age is dispossesed of his business or a small business man is utterly ruined so that some economic plan is prosecuted for what the Government of the day think is the common good.

There are one or two specific questions I want to ask the Minister. I compliment him on his courtesy in giving us a copy of his opening observations, albeit they were brief. I agree their complexity required the circulation of this document he was civil enough to send us. It makes it much easier to examine this Bill when we have this draft before us in black and white. I take it that in pursuance of our policy of co-operation with Northern Ireland we are not to expect any concession from the Government of Northern Ireland in exchange for this tariff concession we are making to them, and that this is just a gesture of goodwill. I am all for making gestures of goodwill. Casting our bread upon the water is a useful thing to do. As another Minister said in another context, not by bread alone do we live.

I draw the Minister's attention to the fact that in introducing this Bill he said that under the present Irish rule manufactured goods imported from Great Britain are regarded as being of British origin if they are manufactured there or if a specified percentage of the cost of production was the result of work done in Britain or in Ireland. The specific percentage is 25 for most goods. In some cases, it is 50 or 75 per cent. How does that chime with the section in the Finance Act we have just passed?

Under the scheme, originally initiated by the late Deputy William Norton, it was provided that there could be a remission of income tax and corporation profits tax on exports from this country, provided a certain amount of the work on the goods exported was done in Ireland and a minimum was set in that regard. We were not entitled to bring in watches from Japan and to ship them out again to Great Britain. You had to satisfy the Treasury and the Department of Industry and Commerce that certain work would be done upon them in Ireland if they were to qualify for this benefit. I think—on this I cannot be certain—that, bearing in mind the terms of the Trade Agreement then existing, now superseded by the recent Trade Agreement, there was some obligation upon us not to give concessions except in respect of goods of Irish manufacture which were deemed to be of Irish manufacture if more than 25 per cent of the added value represented processing in Ireland.

Does this proviso here in regard to goods of British origin coincide with the corresponding provision in the other direction? If not, is it liable to give rise to query? Is our test of British origin any more rigorous than their test of Irish origin? I think these two things must be kept in step. I should be glad to hear from the Minister, at his convenience, whether he is satisfied that, in fact, that is being done. I should have thought 25 per cent, as he says, for most goods approximates to the true situation. Suppose we raise the content of certain goods to 50 or 75 per cent, does this give rise to the possibility of repercussions from the other side? Take our sewing machines. If we bring in parts, screw them together and export to Great Britain——

Mr. P. Byrne

Screw the boxes.

Mr. Dillon

Let us not create any unnecessary difficulties. Suppose, some day, the British say to us: "Show us that 50 or 75 per cent added value of Irish origin in these goods", where would we stand? I gather from the text of what the Minister has said that this exclusion from the general 25 per cent rule is as the figure of 50 per cent in favour of footwear, paint and furniture. Then he goes on to say, in relation to jute, that the goods should be fully manufactured from the raw fibre either in Great Britain or in Ireland. He continues:

I already have power, under the Finance (Agreement with the United Kingdom) Act, 1938, to make regulations prescribing the proportion of the value of an article which must be the result of labour within a particular country, in order that the goods may be treated as manufactured in that country. That Act does not, however, empower me to prescribe rules of the type decided upon for jute goods, and it will be necessary to obtain new powers for this purpose.

What goods has the Minister in mind? Is he referring to jute sacks or is there some wider range?

Dr. Hillery

Carpets——

Mr. Dillon

Jute carpets? I have Tintawn in my flat.

Dr. Hillery

There has been a great deal of advertising here today.

Mr. Dillon

I thought Tintawn was made of sisal, not of jute.

Mr. P. Belton

It is for the backing of ordinary carpets.

Mr. Dillon

Every day of my life, I walk on Tintawn. I thought I was walking on sisal. I do not know. I do not profess to be a carpet technician. If a wide range of goods is covered by this jute context, I understand——

Dr. Hillery

I have a list here at pages 104 and 105, column 2, of the Free Trade Area Agreement laid by the Government before each House of the Oireachtas in December, 1965.

Mr. Dillon

Is it long?

Dr. Hillery

I can give a few examples: woven fabrics of jute; floor coverings, other than out-pile carpets, containing more than 75 per cent by weight of jute; narrow woven fabrics; felt and articles of felt, whether or not impregnated or coated, wholly or mainly of jute; twine, cordage, ropes and cables, plaited or not, wholly or mainly of jute; new sacks and bags, of a kind used for the packing of goods, wholly or mainly of jute; other made-up textile articles. These are the jute.

Mr. Corry

And you could not get beyond the jute man.

Mr. Norton

Carpetbagger.

Mr. Dillon

Deputy Corry and I have grown old together in this House. I hold him in such regard that I do not care to make the same harsh replies to him as I used to make, and I am damned if he will persuade me. I understand that relatively little jute is used in the manufacture of woven twine. I understand that there has been a great substitution of paper. I am coming round to something which ought to command the sympathy of Deputy Corry, that is, that, instead of trying to maintain in existence the jute sack industry, we ought to try to help the jute sack industry to turn over to the paper bag. When I was young and starting in business, Indian meal used to come in 20-stone sacks. I remember being appalled at paying men to carry bags weighing 20-stone: I suppose there are a few people in this House who remember it.

Mr. Donegan

I carried them.

Mr. Dillon

They were jute sacks. Then the next performance was that we used to have two cwt bags and they seemed to me to be an intolerable burden to ask an ordinary man to carry about. There did not seem to be any rhyme or reason for it as it did not help anybody. It simply put on an ordinary labourer an insufferable burden. Then, eventually, we got to the ten-stone jute bag. Any hefty fellow could carry it without unreasonable strain. All over the world, outside the most productive countries, you get units of eight-stone paper bags. So far as I know, there is no commodity, including liquid, that cannot now be satisfactorily accommodated in a paper bag. Is there a query in Deputy Corry's mind?

Mr. Corry

Do you know what a neighbour of mine told me, one time?

Mr. Dillon

No. How could I?

Mr. Corry

He said that it is easy to see that the young lads of this country are getting weaker, smaller and more laggardly every day.

Mr. Dillon

I know precisely that mentality. I have met it in Carolina, Georgia and in every State of the Union of the United States of America where people were accustomed to employ slaves and thought that the bigger the buck nigger the better he was. Whether he was educated or had human dignity or whether he was regarded as a fellow-member of the mystical body of Christ with his employer, if he could carry 20 stone on his back, he was a good buck nigger. I never looked on my neighbours in this country in that way and I do not think we should. I never paid any man to do a job I did not do myself—never—and I was never able to carry a 20-stone bag. That is why I was glad to see them pass. However, that might seem to be wandering a little far.

An Ceann Comhairle

There is no doubt about it.

Mr. Dillon

I want to make this point. We are in great danger of doing this. You are trying to perpetuate an industry that you cannot perpetuate. The day of the jute bag is gone. The effort to try to keep it in existence is doing no service to the young fellows going into it. You are drawing young chaps of 17 or 18 into a dying industry. I do not think you could do any man a greater injury than to bring him, as a young man when he is still adaptable, into a dead end. I do not believe you will see a jute bag in any civilised country in the world ten years from today, but I sympathise with the people in Clara, or wherever they are manufacturing jute bags, because they were persuaded into this business by the Fianna Fáil Government. You cannot go down to them and merely turn the key in the door and say: "Goodbye men, and off with you. You have lost your money and your job and all the years you have invested in this business." The wise thing, the economic thing and the sound thing is to say: "Look, you should be catering for the container business. Jute bags are as dead as the dodo. We will help you to adapt yourselves into a dynamic, expanding business which will be permanent and in which you can train young men, with the prospects that they will have a long, productive and rewarding life in front of them with the training you will give them."

When I see this concession made in regard to jute, I ask myself is this in regard to the jute bag industry? If it is, I think we should think again. I would much sooner put a levy on every incoming paper sack from abroad and use the proceeds to help the domestic jute sack industry to adapt itself to the paper sack industry, than to maintain a 75 per cent tariff to keep in existence an industry I know is going to die. That is an aspect of this situation which I must ask the Minister to examine most closely. There were ropes made in this country long before any tariffs were put on. How many provincial towns do we know of which have streets called Rope Walk? There were Rope Walks in Clonmel, Youghal and Castlebar. I suppose ropes were made in this country which serviced the ships of the British Navy three centuries ago.

In the rope industry we have at Newbridge, I suppose we have as effective an industry as there is in the world, but I do not believe it is based on jute. That is a technical question that I am not qualified to answer at present. It is mainly sisal they use and they are now going over to the manmade textiles and fibres. I know that when I was Minister for Agriculture, I attended a meeting of the FAO and one of the problems discussed was the fact that the Philippines had raised the price of jute so high that the market dropped. They reduced it, but when they did, everybody turned to sisal. I am concerned to ask is this 75 per cent provision primarily designed for the jute bag industry? If it is, I would ask the Minister to think again and if necessary, to ask the House to give him a levy on all incoming paper sacks to help this firm to go over to the modern product.

The last thing I want to say is that somewhere in this Bill there is a reference to the Free Trade Area Agreement with Great Britain. Let us be clear on this. This is a Trade Agreement with Great Britain but there is nothing free about it. This Agreement ultimately provides that every British industrialist can trade in Ireland on the basis of absolute equality with Irish industrialists. Is that not so? However, it does not provide, and never has provided, and as far as I can see, never will provide, that Irish farmers can trade in Great Britain on the basis of equality with British farmers. Therefore, let us stop calling it a Free Trade Area Agreement. It is a Trade Agreement for what it is worth. I am not going to investigate in detail all of its provisions now but one thing is that it is not a free trade area.

All these operations orient to the day on which we will end up in the Common Market of Europe. That day is coming as soon as the French make up their minds to admit Great Britain. We will get in that day, no sooner and no later. When we get in, it may mean stresses and strains but we ought remember that it will be also the first step on the road to the Atlantic partnership that President Kennedy described in his speech outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia in 1963. That was designed not primarily to make us rich, not primarily to blind us with the affluent society; it was designed to make us free and keep us that way. The first step is a United Europe and the second step is the citadel of freedom that President Kennedy then described. I will be glad to live long enough to see the foundation stone of that citadel laid and I will be very proud that Ireland should have a part in laying it.

Mr. Corry

I am afraid Deputy Dillon has some very foolish ideas left in him.

Mr. Dillon

Would the Deputy think me wrong if I went home to bed?

Mr. Corry

I should like the Deputy to wait for a few minutes.

Mr. Dillon

I will.

Mr. Corry

I have been a pretty long time in this House and it takes my mind back when Deputy Dillon speaks about Mr. McGilligan and his activities in the industrial world. I can take my mind back to a little waterproofing industry in Glanmire, the owner of which came to me to know in 1930-31, what kind of lunatics were in the Department of Industry and Commerce. They had employment for about 25 there and the genius in charge of the Department was ex-Deputy Patrick McGilligan.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

If the Deputy is going back to 1931, it has no relevance to the Bill before the House.

Mr. Corry

The Department put a 20 per cent levy on waterproofs coming into the country and a 35 per cent levy on the material for making them, so you can make what you like out of that; but, within 12 months of this Government coming into office, there were 85 employed in that factory. Again, out of that factory, we started Ideal Weatherproofs which is, at present, giving employment to some 700 people, but not on the basis of 20 per cent on the manufactured article and 35 per cent on the raw material necessary to make it up.

Deputy Dillon mentioned Messrs. Guinness and the employment they give. It is all very well to talk about these industrialists. I know they are very generous. They throw out money wholesale for races and dogtracks, and the Lord knows what else, but I would remind Deputy Dillon that the Irish farmer is getting from Arthur Guinness & Co., the same price today for his malting barley as he got in 1948.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The question of barley does not arise on this Bill.

Mr. Corry

I am saying, Sir——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I know what the Deputy is saying and I say that the question of barley does not arise on this Imports (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill.

Mr. Corry

It arises in this way: if one is aware that the price of malting barley at the present time is tied to the price of British malting barley——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy will not be allowed to discuss the price of barley. It does not arise.

Mr. Corry

——what will be our position then under this new agreement? That is a very vital question for us as farmers.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It may be a vital question but it is not relevant.

Mr. Corry

If it is not relevant to discuss it under this Agreement——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy may get another opportunity to discuss it, but it is not relevant on this Bill.

Mr. Corry

This Agreement is now before this House and I claim that I am entitled to discuss the advantages or disadvantages of this Agreement to the Irish farmer.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Agreement has already been discussed and approved by the House. The Deputy must relate his remarks to the Bill before the House. There can be no general discussion on the Free Trade Agreement.

Mr. Corry

Very well, then. We will have a go at the Bill. I am not afraid of all this redundancy about which some people are talking. Our industries were started on tariffs and protection. William Dwyer, God be good to him, built up in my constituency three very large industries—one in Cork City, two factories in Midleton and two factories in Youghal on tariffs and protection.

Mr. Norton

A great Fine Gael man.

Mr. Corry

No. He came into this House on one occasion. He stood as a Fine Gael candidate and lost his deposit on one occasion. On the next occasion he went before the people of Cork and he was elected. He said: "When I went before the people with a load of Fine Gael foolishness on my shoulders, I lost my deposit, but when I went up as William Dwyer of Cork, I headed the poll."

(Interruptions.)

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. Corry

Deputy Dillon is a bad prophet. He is the prophet who told us about the blessings of beet and what would happen to the beet industry and the way in which to finish it. That was Deputy Dillon's approach. He implemented that policy by cutting down the price of beet to the Irish farmer and, as a result of that, in 1957 he had to import 75,000 tons of foreign sugar and to pay the niggers of Africa £12 a ton more than what was paid to the Irish farmer and the Irish worker for their beet.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I would ask Deputy Corry now to come to the Bill.

Mr. Corry

I am on the Bill, Sir, very much on it. As I said, I am not afraid of the effects of any agreement on any of these industries that are now on their feet. If I were to pay a compliment to anyone in this House, I would pay it to the man I consider to be the best architect of industry in this country; I refer to General Costello who started within the past five years an industry for the export of the raw material produced by the Irish farmer and processed by him.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Bill relates to imports, not to exports.

Mr. Corry

And I am proving that we need not be afraid of competition from any outside source. It is a free trade agreement. There are two sides to it. There is the import side as well as the export side. The industries to which I have referred are at present giving employment to over 2,000 Irish men and women. They would be looking for employment from the foreigner, had he not had the genius, the industry and the skill to start these industries here.

I cross my bridges when I come to them and others should do the same. I would like to remind Deputy Dillon that the bulk of the subsidy alleged to be paid to the Irish farmer for fertilisers is paid to Messrs. Gouldings. According as we increase the subsidy here, the price of the fertiliser goes up the following morning.

Mr. Dillon

Do not blame that on me. Blame that on the Deputy's colleagues sitting over there. Do not be shaking your gory locks at me. I am not the Minister for Agriculture.

Mr. Corry

When the Deputy comes in here to boast about the job, he should be prepared to stand over the job. He should not do Pontius Pilate.

Mr. Dillon

I took the tariff off phosphates and the Deputy put it on again.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That does not arise on this Bill. I am afraid the Deputy is not aware of the purpose of the Bill.

Mr. Corry

I am very well aware of it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It relates to certain goods of Northern Ireland origin——

Mr. Corry

Does it apply to goods from Britain?

Mr. Dillon

Of course it does.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It relates to duty-free licensed goods imported from Britain and tariff concessions on goods imported from Northern Ireland.

Mr. Corry

What fear have we about goods imported from Britain, remembering that one could travel the city of Dublin, as I did on one occasion, looking for a pair of Irish socks and I could not get them.

Mr. Donegan

The Deputy should have bought them in Cork. Why would he not buy them in his own constituency?

Mr. Corry

They were imported by the former Senator McGuire.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Corry

I always thought Dublin was a fairly dirty hole but I did not expect it to be as dirty as all that.

Mr. Donegan

He does not like the Presidential election.

Mr. Corry

We have industries which are not afraid of imports doing any damage to them. Our industries are so good that we have enormous exports from every one of them.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy may not discuss the question of exports on this Bill. We are dealing with imports.

Mr. Corry

I am explaining that we need not be afraid of imports. Is that not plain enough? Practically 50 per cent of the goods being produced by our industries today are for export. Why should we be in dread of competition from countries to which we are able to export and sell on their own market? Take Youghal Carpets. Over 50 per cent of their production is exported to Britain and sold well there. A large proportion of William Dwyer's production in Youghal is exported and sold to Britain in competition with British goods, even though the people of Dublin will not buy his socks. We have that right along the line in each one of our industries. We are not afraid. We have four little processing factories at present giving employment to over 2,000 people. We are not afraid of anyone capturing our market here because they would not be able to compete. We have no dread of that redundancy some people here seem to be afraid of. When I first heard of this several months ago, I went around the various industries in my constituency and consulted them. I could find no dread in any one of them of any competition with Britain or anywhere else.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy may not embark on a discussion of exports by occasional references to the Bill, which deals with imports.

Mr. S. Dunne

How are you going to get out of that?

Mr. Corry

I will not get out of it by going to the theatre with Deputy Dunne while all those fellows want a house in the city.

Mr. S. Dunne

You would make a good turn on variety. If you lose your job here, you could queue up at the stage door of the Queens. You would be very good on television—Blackpool Night.

Mr. Corry

We need not be afraid of any Agreement. So far as Northern Ireland is concerned, for the past couple of years we have had the Northern Ireland fellows growing beet for us. It comes down here and is manufactured in the Tuam factory. The sugar is sent back there again. As a result of that, we got a market for 10,000 tons of sugar in Northern Ireland. But, of course, this House is so taken up with theatres and opera houses that it would not bother with little things like that. We are no more afraid of a Free Trade Agreement with Britain than we would be of going into the Common Market in the morning. We know we will be able to hold our own in any of them. Our people today are as well trained as any body of young people in Britain or Europe. We would not be as well able to deal with the situation if we had a few more people like Deputy Fitzpatrick who when we started training the young lads in shipbuilding, said it should be stopped and the place closed down.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That has no relevance to the Bill.

Mr. Corry

It certainly has.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy has referred to this on several occasions this evening on different other Bills.

Mr. Corry

Yes, it is the kind of thing you can bring in on every Bill. Certainly there is serious competition in the shipbuilding world. However, we have one ship going off the stocks this week, another big one half built and a third one to go on the stocks. I think that shows us the fallibility of Deputy Fitzpatrick, just like the fallibility of Deputy Dillon about beet. Both have the same ideas about the ability of our industry to compete with concerns abroad.

Mr. Belton

You are talking about Cork, not Ireland.

Mr. Corry

You can raise the price of beer because you are getting cheap barley from us.

Mr. Donegan

Dublin was not so nice in the Presidential election.

Mr. Corry

You have a leg in both camps. You are half a maltster and a bit of a farmer, and as far as the bit of the farmer is concerned, you told us yourself that the farmers there produce the dirtiest milk in Europe. I shall not delay the House any longer.

Mr. S. Dunne

When will you be on again? We want to tell people about you.

Mr. Larkin

After the last two performances, it is difficult to remember what one wanted to say. With all due respect to Deputy Dillon, when he was speaking I thought we were discussing the Industrial Training Bill, which is not before us at the moment. I was not quite sure what Deputy Corry was talking about. I do not think he was quite clear himself. If the future is as promising as Deputy Corry seems to think it is, the workers so well trained that they can meet competition from any quarter, then there would appear to be no need to space our tariff reductions over a period of ten years. Deputy Corry should have convinced the Taoiseach and the Minister for Industry and Commerce that we can go into competition tomorrow. Maybe we can but, if we do, then the country will be back in the position even Deputy Corry would not advocate of being one big ranch. The exodus from the country would be parallel with the exodus of the Jews from Egypt.

However, as I understand the situation, apart from the Minister's desire to be given certain powers under this Bill, there are two main facets that are of interest not only to us here but to the people generally. The Minister said:

As a result of discussions with Irish industry, provision was made in the Free Trade Area Agreement for certain changes in the Irish rules... The changes are to raise the specified percentage from 25 per cent to 50 per cent for footwear, paint and furniture and, for jute goods, to lay down a rule that the goods should be fully manufactured from the raw fibre either in Britain or in Ireland.

I take it the Minister is satisfied that without some added control in that regard the workers in these industries would be exposed to early redundancy and the possibility of the closing down of some units of the various industries. This might well be the situation in other industries too. Without discussing the Free Trade Area Agreement in any depth, and without discussing the merits or demerits of that agreement, it should be recalled that spokesmen of the Labour Party repeatedly stressed their concern for the future employment of workers in Irish industry. The Taoiseach referred to certain sections which were lagging behind in efficiency, and I think at one stage he referred to certain sections of management which were lazy and unprogressive and had not done anything at all to bring their firms up to date either on the productive or the distributive side. However, the Minister is satisfied with his discussions with the industries concerned and we feel that we can support the proposal referred to here.

Another aspect of the matter is the acceleration in the annual reduction of the tariffs in the case of Northern Ireland. Representatives of the Labour Party for many years consistently advocated a closer relationship with the six sundered counties. On the face of it, this idea would appear to merit support but industries have been established in Northern Ireland in recent years solely with British capital. I do not think it is any secret that Northern Ireland is considered to be almost a depressed area. Unemployment there equals our own. At the same time, fairly substantial industrial units have been established there. While we generally welcome British and other capital coming in and bringing technical knowhow and expertise to help in the development of Irish industry, there is one matter of concern arising from the decision that on July 1st instead of a ten per cent reduction, there will be a 20 per cent reduction. That means that within a period of three years the tariff on goods coming in from Northern Ireland will have to be reduced by 50 per cent; 20 per cent on July 1st, 30 per cent in July of next year, and in the third year goods manufactured in Northern Ireland and coming in here —some of them manufactured in very large concerns, and goods of a service nature—will because of the capital involved and to some extent, possibly, because of the industrial tradition in that corner of our country, be able to compete on more than favourable terms with the Twenty-six Counties.

Therefore, this matter needs consideration and while for political, social and other reasons the gesture of goodwill should be supported, we should like some positive assurance from the Minister that the gesture of goodwill will not in the near future result in large numbers of workers at present in employment here being sent to sign on at the labour exchanges or to join the tide of emigration to Britain. So far we have not seen any evidence that the lectures of the Taoiseach or the utilisation of adaptation grants by industry will ensure protection of our workers against this type of competition. It is necessary again, without discussing the merits and demerits of free trade, to refer to the theory of the Taoiseach and the Minister for Industry and Commerce, expressed to the House when the Agreement was being discussed, that it would take ten years for the Agreement to become fully effective and that in the meantime Irish industry would be developed to a point where it could face competition from Britain and elsewhere on equal terms.

In this debate, mention has been made of a number of industries, including the boot and shoe industry, the paint and furniture industry, and that they will get slightly added protection. What is the position of industries engaged in the manufacture of textiles? What is to be the position of a number of other industries excluded from this proposal? We hope the Minister, in his reply, will deal with these in a comprehensive, detailed manner.

Deputy Corry, in the course of a somewhat incoherent speech, said that the young men and women of this country are fully capable of meeting all competition from Britain, Northern Ireland or elsewhere. Nobody doubts their capacity but it is known to the Minister and the country, if not to Deputy Corry, that the training of our young people is sadly lacking. That is so because it is only now that we have been presented with an Industrial Training Bill which introduces for the first time some form of training and retraining.

The Minister in his opening statement did not say that if workers are made redundant as a result of his activities, they will be given a guarantee of re-employment, or at least a guarantee that their wage rates in alternative employment will not suffer. The legislation we are now in the course of passing may not have this effect but if it is correct that it will require ten years to bring up our economy to a point at which we can compete equally with Britain, the training of workers and re-equipment of the various industrial undertakings will be of vital importance. I do not wish in any way to denigrate the attempt to make a gesture of goodwill to the North. We are all in favour of improving relationships between all Irishmen, but we must think of the economic results of any such measure as this. One of our prime concerns is whether this legislation will affect the economic security, the employment of a number of workers.

Mr. Byrne

We in Fine Gael welcome the Free Trade Agreement with Britain, negotiated late last year. Arising from that, we are, of course supporting this Bill. We welcome the conversion of Fianna Fáil from the doctrine of economic isolation which Fianna Fáil held so dear at such a high economic price during a number of years. I wish to avail of the opportunity afforded by this Bill to ask the Minister to indicate to the House what developments, if any, have transpired during the past six to eight months in regard to one of our major industries— motor car assembly—which it is generally agreed will be more adversely affected than any other industry by the free trade arrangements. The departmental working party—I forget the title under which they worked—which surveyed various industries, were particularly pessimistic and despondent in their forecasts for this highly protected industry which it is agreed will go by the board under the Free Trade Agreement.

The working party commented, as far as I can recall, that the proprietors of those assembly plants did not take them into their confidence, by and large, as to any plans which they might have for adaptation or for carrying on in some other form. This matter is very relevant to this Bill, one of the main features of which is the provision of accelerated and increased concessions for trade with Northern Ireland. By reason of this fact it was hoped that the motor assembly industry, which employs about 10,000 people, could branch out into other light engineering fields. Those intimately concerned have found over recent months that the manufacturing advantages arising from the vast scale upon which Northern Ireland light engineering is organised are such that Northern Ireland manufactures will hit many of our light engineering organisations very badly, particularly in the Dublin area, by reason of the proximity of the Belfast engineering works to Dublin city. The speed of engineering is one on which the economies of large-scale organisation and large-scale manufacture can be brought to bear very considerably indeed. Therefore, I want to draw the Minister's attention to the fact that there is great cause for concern as to the future of this industry.

All the points made by previous speakers here, Deputy Dillon in particular, relating to the Government's plans for compensation and retraining, and what have you, of the workers affected, cannot be reiterated too strongly, as far as the motor assembly and light engineering are concerned. In particular, as far as the motor assembly is concerned, the certain fact is that the proprietors will very probably lose nothing, and may well indeed gain considerably. The livelihood of the workers involved is at risk. The interests of the workers may not coincide with that of the proprietors. Therefore, it behoves the Minister to take a very firm stand in this matter if he considers the need is there.

I mentioned that we in Fine Gael welcome the conversion of Fianna Fáil from economic isolation and we welcome the Free Trade with Britain. To my mind, a very important element of that plan has been very adversely affected by recent developments. A free trade area, if it means anything, involves the free movement of labour, of goods and of capital between the areas involved. In the British Budget a few weeks ago, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that he had had discussions with financial interests in Britain and that Ireland was included in those areas in respect of which he urged voluntary restraint on British investors. That immediately nullifies one of the major advantages of the Free Trade Area. If foreign capitalists, as British manufacturers, are not in a position to exploit the advantages offered by free trade between Britain and Ireland by coming here to set up industries, our labour case will be far worse than it is.

It, therefore, behoves the Minister to tell us to what extent the whole concept has been changed by this retrograde development in Britain, and to what extent the plans of British industrialists to transfer funds here and also plants here have been rendered null and void. The Minister will be aware of this fact. He, of course, is not aware of the many incipient or dormant proposals which will be adversely affected. I want to suggest to him and to the Government that it is very important indeed that the case should be made to Britain for removal of this restriction at the earliest possible date.

Previous speakers referred to the ill effects which can arise from dumping by foreign manufacturers, as soon as the tariff restrictions are removed. I seem to recall referring to this matter during a debate, or by way of a question, about six months ago. Perhaps the Minister will correct me if I am wrong. I seem to recall asking if any anti-dumping legislation was being prepared. I may have missed its introduction. I have been watching out for it as it is a matter in which I would be interested. If I did not miss it, if it has not come in, it is very timely that the Minister should tell us when it will be introduced. It is a matter which it would be very difficult indeed to legislate for in an effective and realistic sense.

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Dr. Hillery)

This Bill was not, as I said last week on the Tea Bill, introducing the concept of a free trade area, but rather as consequential legislation, which dealt with duty-free licences, the Rules of Origin and enabling powers to give concessions on Northern Ireland goods. Nobody raised anything on the question of duty-free licences, but since the debate extended to the whole concept of a free trade area and how we may fare, I suppose it was natural that dumping, redundancy, training and retraining should be raised. The dumping legislation is being prepared. There have been consultations with industry. Proposals have been received and the legislation is well on its way to being prepared now. In the interim before it is introduced, the first cut in the tariffs will hardly necessitate the need for this anti-dumping legislation and in that interim it is intended to make use of older legislation to protect industry.

I might tell the House that as a result of consultations, we have proposals ready. There have been further consultations and those have caused the delay in introducing legislation. As a result of these consultations we have adequate proposals now to protect industry against any dumping. The House has shown great anxiety about this matter and I can assure the House that the proposals we have would protect industry in any degree sensitive against dumping.

As regards redundancy, Deputy Dillon was quite wrong when he said that the State might say that for the economic benefit of the country a man would lose his job. Redundancy is caused by technological advances and this is not something which is due to a decision by the Government. It is a fact of life which must be faced. The Government are facing it by having redundancy compensation to protect people and to give them financial compensation between the time they lose their jobs and get other jobs. We are making provision for training for any jobs which are available for people who either left the land or left jobs which have suddenly disappeared. There will be retraining for those people and there will be creation of mobility in labour. We must, from what Deputy Dillon has said, all realise that a big change in the mental attitude of all of us is necessary if we are to meet the rapidly changing employment situation which is about to come. Very rapid changes have taken place in the employment situation over the past five to six years. Those changes will continue and accentuate.

Debate adjourned.

The Dáil adjourned at 11.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 6th July, 1966.