When I reported progress, I was commenting on the fact that the Minister had circulated proposals to both the employers' side and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and had expressed the hope in his introductory statement, that the setting up of his office would lead to better relations. I said I did not believe that legislation of itself would settle industrial relations. that this was a matter which would come about only because of the fact that both sides were willing to come together for the common good. I asked the Minister in regard to these proposals which he had circulated if he had received any comments from either side or from both sides and if these comments would form the basis of discussions which the Minister might have with either of these before he attempted to draft the type of proposals he has in mind in regard to this matter of better industrial relations.
At the present time on the Irish industrial scene the hopes of both sides are pinned on the Labour Court as an instrument which enables the disputing parties to have somebody to look at it with them and to enable them to reach a solution of their problems. At this stage I should like to take the opportunity of paying tribute to the Chief Conciliation Officer of the Labour Court for his good offices during the period in which he has shouldered this very onerous task. One of the things that, perhaps, we do not advert to as often as we might is the fact that the number of disputes that are settled outweigh completely the number of those which flare up into a strike or industrial unrest and that the Conciliation Officer with his advisers has been able, in a great many cases, to throw oil on the troubled waters and reach a solution. One wonders at the present time if the Labour Court, as constituted, is not getting out of touch with modern conditions and the times in which we live. One of the points the Minister would need to bear in mind in that respect is that the personnel of the new Court should be such that the Minister, labour and industry could feel confident that they were up-to-date and alert in looking at the changing situation. It is constantly changing not alone in this country but in every other country. This is important. Setting up the Labour Court of itself will not cure the ills. It is the courses which are taken ahead of time by officers connected with the Labour Court that might offer the best solution to the kind of problems we are likely to come up against.
One of the very important factors which I feel would be in the mind of anybody engaged in industry, and particularly of the workers in industry, is that continuance of work is more important than the conditions which obtain in any particular industry. This is a very important point with them. We speak very often rather loosely in regard to the economic wealth of the country and the size of the cake. I think the time has come for everybody to realise that it is not increasing the portions of the cake that counts but increasing the cake so as to make portions of it. That is the greatest hope. Both sides will benefit from this kind of co-operation.
When speaking of his Department, the Minister seemed to see it as having a variety of functions, as it has, and these were stated without regard to the priorities which the Minister will determine should be raised in relation to matters to be dealt with. One section of his Department will deal with the welfare of workers. Then he spoke of industrial relations, manpower forecasts and replacement services. These, of course, are most important. The Minister, I am sure, has the benefit of the work done by the Parliamentary Secretary when in charge of the manpower policy, has the results of the study made and inaugurated under his auspices and, indeed, the very elaborate discussions which took place in the Seanad on manpower policy.
One of the very important things in regard to manpower policy is the fact that it is not a question of finding full employment for manpower; it is rather a question of relating the skills of manpower to the various types of work. There should be the possibility that manpower policy will seek to match jobs and workers in all parts of the country. It is not just a question of providing full employment, very important and necessary as that is for the reason that there will continue to exist, seemingly, a hard core of unemployment. The figures seem to remain static; they move up and down seasonally but, by and large, a hard core still remains. But, outside of that, if there were enough of the right type of work in the right place at the right time, the problem of the Minister at that stage would be to see to it that not alone would these opportunities be created for workers but there would be workers equally placed to avail of them.
Reading the debates in the Seanad, one is struck by the fact that it was felt that the employment exchanges were not the proper foundation on which to base the work of the new Ministry. The employment exchanges, as they are called—most people speak colloquially of "going to the labour"—would be very false, if the policy the Minister wishes to pursue is to have the results which everybody hopes it will have. Equally so, taking the employment services away from the exchanges as such would perhaps create a better image but at the same time I feel there will have to be very close liaison between the two offices.
At present people are compelled to go to the exchanges to register for employment and on going there, find, in some cases, certainly, a very loose type of listing of the skills of people who come to register. There is a first and second choice. I wonder if the work in which these people are engaged even at present, and from which they may become detached by reason of unemployment, is really the kind of work for which they are essentially fitted. Very often there is in the back of a man's mind that he takes a chance in stating the most likely second avenue of employment. I admit there is an amount of that kind of information available to the exchanges.
If the exchanges are doing their work —and I have no reason to doubt it— then I am sure they are in touch with the various opportunities of employment which may arise in their area. If they are not, they should be. Of course they will not always succeed in getting all the information, because of the various other avenues through which people obtain employment. There is the avenue of friendship, the avenue of school unions, and, of course, there are always the trade union branches. These are means through which employment is sought and found but the labour exchanges ought to be in the position of knowing the opportunities available or about to become available. That brings me to one of the most important points in this regard which the Minister mentioned, that is, accurate forecasts of manpower becoming available, and accurate forecasting of the opportunities for manpower when available.
The Ministry for which the Minister is now responsible has not just an obligation to keep in touch with these problems but to keep in close touch with the related Ministries concerned. The Department of Social Welfare and the Department of Education are two very important Departments in relation to this new office. The Minister mentioned the Industrial Training Bill and the redundancy payments which will come to be paid. This is something we have to take note of, particularly in the light of the conditions we are likely to meet even in the Free Trade Area arrangements we have at present with Great Britain, and what is likely to occur if we get into the European Economic Community by 1970, or whatever year it will be. These conditions will create for people in this country difficulties in regard to this matter and it will require a very high degree of skill in forecasting, and not alone in forecasting, but in the correcting of forecasts. It is very important that forecasts should not be left as they are but should be revised so as to ensure that the information contained is the most up to date upon which to form estimates.
One of the matters which come to my mind at this stage is An Cheard Comhairle and its function in this situation. As we know, young people now seek their apprenticeship through the services of An Cheard Comhairle; but I wonder if the Minister has given thought to the fact that with the techniques which are becoming increasingly available, with the speed with which changes are taking place, very often people who set out on a particular apprenticeship course find perhaps within a five-year period, that the skills in which they were trained are being largely superseded, particularly in relation to technical education and in the lower echelons of the technical services. For example, in regard to typing, copying machines and new photographic processes now play a large part and there is a tendency towards more copying by these processes.
One of the things the Minister should keep constantly in mind is the relationship of An Cheard Comhairle to the quickly changing pattern of events not only here but in the world outside with which we will be increasingly in contact. If we do enter the EEC within the next few years, greater problems will be created for our young people. One of the matters I should like to put to the Minister at this stage is the position of young people who have got their group certificates. Before they can go on for higher technical training, they must have a job. Here is the problem. What are our youths to do if they have not got a job and want to go on to higher technical training? That certainly will be a very live problem, particularly in view of the fact that the Minister for Education says the school-leaving age is to be raised. When they have got to the stage of having the common certificate, where are they to go from there? If the psychologists, who will have some influence on their training for future employment, feel they should move into the manual phase or into technical education, how are they to proceed to higher technical education? The Minister knows well that there is not full employment for quite a large number of young people who, if they were employed, would be able to stay here. That is one of the matters to which the Minister must give serious attention in regard to the training of our young people in the future.
That would seem to point the way to greater consultation between the Department of Education and the Department of Labour. Leaving aside the problem of unemployment or the redeployment of labour already employed, the force of young people coming up will throw a strain on the amount of employment available. One of the facts which Investment in Education was supposed to highlight was the fact that by 1970 we will need a higher proportion of skilled labour if we are to meet the challenge of EEC conditions. I am sure it is immediately apparent to the Minister that the bottleneck being created by the condition that a person with a group certificate seeking higher technical education must have a job will have to be tackled and tackled quickly. In this matter also the Department of Education must keep in touch with the Minister, because if we are rigid in regard to the terms or the type of education being given to young people, it will not be easy to change that rigidity later if these young people find that they have been trained for one particular type of employment, but the more general type of education which is now envisaged may be the answer to that problem.
If the dream of the Minister for Education comes true, and if we have free education up to the intermediate certificate, or up to the level of the general certificate, will the Minister or the Minister for Education be able to supply the psychologists and the psychological help necessary in order to help the student to determine what line of education he should pursue, whether he should pursue the hand and eye subjects, or whether he should pursue a course which would lead him on to the leaving certificate and the university. If the manpower policy is to work out efficiently and effectively, if we are to have the right people with the right skills in the right jobs, and get rid of the square pegs in the round holes, we will need a great deal of care, of forecasting and of method. I do not see this as an easy exercise. I welcome the Minister's statement and I welcome more education for young people, but a corresponding effort must be made to ensure that this extra education is not wasted but is so channelled as to produce better results for our young people and for the nation.
Very often in labour relations, seemingly it is not possible to see the problems which are likely to emerge. Both sides seem to pursue parallel courses without any contact with each other until some tiny problem or some tiny obstacle on the line causes a collision which it should have been possible to avoid. In the new Labour Court which the Minister envisages there will be need for conciliation officials who will keep in touch at all times and look ahead to the problems, and try to foresee whether a certain line of conduct on either side may lead to a collision. They must in time try to head off this and prevent such a situation arising, again going on the basis that it must be a question of getting one side to see that the interests of both side are concerned in their unity rather than in their disunity, that they are not antagonists but rather co-operators in the best sense of the word. They must realise that both sides have rights and duties in their approach to this problem and that the rights and duties of one are not more sacrosanct than those of the other side. If there is that approach and if the officials of the Department can use their best efforts in this way, there will be greater hope and less likelihood of the kind of collisions that have been occurring, causing upsets and losses to both sides.
Another problem I should like to mention at this stage is that of the placement services which will fall to be dealt with by the Minister and the new Department. We cannot escape the conclusion that as we proceed into the 1970s, we shall be in more difficulty in regard to formal industrial projects so that there is an urgent problem in regard to industries which up to the present were protected and soon will have their tariff shields withdrawn in a climate which might be inclined to send some of them to the wall.
This is a problem we cannot look at too early in our efforts to minimise the hardships that might later be imposed on those industries. The retraining of the people who work in such industries is one of the more important aspects of the Minister's cares. The effective retraining of people in a certain age group is something that will require the skill of industrial psychologists and I am glad to note from the Minister's statement that he will make one of those people available in the new Department. I hope it will not be restricted to one because I cannot see how a single expert in this field can deal with these problems expeditiously if we are to be realistic in our approach to possible entry into EEC.
The retraining of young people may not present the same difficulties as that of the more adult personnel but one of the things that seem to me to be of great urgency is the matter of re-deployment of labour. I do not know what plans the Minister has for dealing with the situation but one can visualise situations of great hardship arising, cases of almost insuperable difficulties. If in certain areas industries of a certain kind cease to function, the workers in those industries must be redeployed elsewhere and a consequent problem will arise requiring the best efforts of not alone the Minister for Labour but of the unions and the employers in order to face up to the problem effectively.
Here again the Minister's Department will have to establish a close liaison with the Department of Local Government and with the National Building Agency. If large numbers of people have to be redeployed, we must realise that it is no use thinking we can get men to move from an area where they have been employed to like employment or different employment elsewhere, if they are not supplied with homes in the new areas of employment. This is a matter that will require very careful consideration, long-term planning and forecasting. I feel sure that in reference to this problem certain industrialists have been and will be in touch with the Department and I am sure the Minister is aware of the difficulties that are likely to arise.
Therefore, we cannot too soon begin to deal with plans to meet this situation. I do not wish to refer to any particular industry. I could take, for example, one close to me in Limerick city, affected by conditions of entry into the EEC or of the Free Trade Agreement with Britain because of the importation of screws and nails from England when free trade comes and tariffs are removed. I hope such a situation will never arise and that the Minister will therefore not have to deal with it. The point I wish to make is that there must be pre-planning so that we shall not be dealing with the problem when and if it arises.
The placement services come next in importance to the forecasting services. Placement is a matter that will cause most trouble, if I may use the word, for the new Department.
The Minister has taken care of the question of redundancy payments from the point of view of contributions to provide for such payments, but redundancy payments of themselves are not much good for people with family commitments. Of greater importance to a potentially redundant worker is retraining and the redeployment of his skills so as to enable him to continue as a useful member of society who will play his part in the national economy and be able to provide for his family. This is most important in so far as a worker's personality is concerned: it is something which might be passed over lightly, without account being taken of the sociological effects on a person who, having been at work and having planned his life, suddenly finds himself without that type of work. Of most importance to him is that at the earliest possible moment he should be retrained for re-employment so that his qualities will continue to be of benefit to his family and to the nation.
On the question of manpower forecasting, the Minister mentioned difficulties in regard to the recruitment of the type of personnel he requires. We realise that the assembly of information of the type required is not an easy matter, that great skill is needed. The Minister mentioned that he has a lot of figures and information. I am sure every employment exchange in the country has a lot of information but whether it will be of use is another matter. The age of a worker and his family commitments and circumstances are very important but more important still is that the employment exchange should know of the basic skill of the worker concerned and be able to say what kind of similar work such a worker would be able to perform.
In regard to the Labour Court on which the Minister has been formulating policy, I assume he has not finally determined the type of measure he proposes to bring before the House. However, I am sure he will be taking into account the views of both sides concerned in this matter. There is outside of the two bodies as we know them at present, the employers and the employees, a great body of personnel who are concerned with those fears which I consider are well grounded. I refer particularly to the conciliation and arbitration body. This body has been in existance for a long time and has been concerned with very large organisations such as the Civil Service, the teachers, the Garda, Local Government officials and so on and by and large has worked well.
I can see that the Minister's thinking in this matter is that it is necessary to bring them all within the ambit of one court and one procedure for the airing of these matters, although I am sure the people concerned who succeeded in negotiating different agreements by conciliation and arbitration, and who have had experience of what was possible at conciliation and arbitration level, certainly would feel that those are the two methods that should still be used and that full use should be made of them. Certainly, in reading through the White Paper, if you like to call it such, which the Minister circulated in regard to conciliation and arbitration, I do not think it will be the answer to the problem which the Minister sees before him. One of the things which certainly struck me in reading the comments on arbitration where a court arbitrator is used as an agreed arbitrator, is that if there is not such an arbitrator, there does not seem to be much use in telling people they are going to arbitration. Both sides must have confidence in the individual concerned that this is a free process.
The Minister mentioned he did not intend in the Trade Union Bill which he proposes to bring before the House and of which we have not got the details yet, to interfere in the court as it is at present in regard to free negotiation, that the proper approach is that the trade unions and employers must freely negotiate on these matters. One of the things which could be of use in such negotiations is the use of assessors, provision for which was made in the establishment of the Labour Court. This provision has not been used as often or as freely as it might have been used. In these matters where technical points are at issue, it is most important that anybody who sets out to try a case should be expertly advised so as to deal properly with it. Very often one is impressed by the ability of assessors in admiralty courts and by the expert advice they can give. I wonder if sufficient use is being made of this service which was to have been available through the Labour Court to both sides?
I consider that at conciliation level, whether or not there is conciliation, there ought to be available to the Labour Court an official of conciliation grade in a position to recount what took place at the conciliation meetings so as to bring the court up-to-date on the factual position before the court attempts to arrive at any final decision. If more use were made of this type of service, there might not be any necessity, or perhaps not as great a necessity, to have to deal with the problem any further.
Very important in a manpower policy and so on is the question of an incomes policy which was adverted to briefly when this matter was under discussion in the Seanad. We have had some documents on this matter but they were not full enough or deep enough to give all the necessary information. For instance, the Quinn Report which deals with basic wages, I respectfully suggest, was inadequately documented. It ought to have been documented much better. The facts on which the report was based should have been published. If this had been done, it would have given more reason for its acceptance as being a factual document in every sense. There is not much use in publishing a report if people feel it has not been inadequately documented. Perhaps the Minister will be able to tell us when the two Bills mentioned will come before us?
