Committee on Finance. - Vote 39—Labour. – Dáil Éireann (18th Dáil) – Thursday, 16 Feb 1967

Committee on Finance. - Vote 39—Labour.

Minister for Labour (Dr. Hillery)

I move:

That a sum not exceeding £848,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1968, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Labour, including certain Services administered by that Office, and for payment of certain Grants-in-Aid.

This is the first Estimate for a full financial year for the Department of Labour. Deputies will recall that, last November, the Dáil passed an Additional Estimate for £38,600 for 1966-67 in respect of new expenditure arising out of the establishment of the Department seven months ago. The bulk of the expenditure incurred by the Department during the year 1966-67 was, however, borne on the Votes for Industry and Commerce and Social Welfare because provision had already been made in those Votes for the services which were later transferred to the Department of Labour.

The net amount required for the Department of Labour for 1967-68 is £848,000. The total provision made last year between the three Votes mentioned was £553,740, the increased amount now sought for the coming financial year being £294,260. This increase arises mainly out of the provision of a range of new and improved services covering such matters as training and retraining schemes, redundancy and resettlement schemes, placement and guidance facilities, careers information and research work. Training and retraining schemes alone represent an increase of over £150,000 on the provision for 1966-67. The gross total of the Estimate is £1,274,515 from which must be deducted a sum of £426,515 for appropriations-in-aid, leaving the net sum required at £848,000. The appropriations-in-aid are derived mainly from the Social Insurance Fund in respect of services rendered on an agency basis. Section 40 (2) of the Social Welfare Act, 1952, makes provision for payment out of that Fund of costs of administration of the Social Insurance Scheme.

During the debate on the Additional Estimate for the part of the year 1966-67, I gave an account of the functions of the Department and of the plans which I had in mind. I propose now to summarise briefly the progress made since last November and to indicate how the plans for the Department are being developed, bearing in mind in particular the points raised by Deputies in the debate on the Additional Estimate.

As a result of the first part of the review of the factory inspectorate, announced in November last, I have decided to increase the staffing of the inspectorate from 22 to 28. A competition to fill the additional posts will be advertised by the Civil Service Commissioners in the near future.

Deputies will remember that I informed the House in November that I was considering how I could help more effectively the work of the National Industrial Safety Organisation. The task of this organisation, which is representative of management, trade unions and the factory inspectorate, is to stimulate interest in, and action on, the provision of better safety precautions. I have now decided that the best way of assisting this very worthwhile organisation is to make them a grant this year of up to £2,000 on a £1-for-£1 basis, in line with the contributions they receive from industry and other sources. If contributions in excess of £2,000 are forthcoming from industry and elsewhere, I shall be very happy to consider raising the State's contribution to match them. I have also made available to the National Industrial Safety Organisation the full-time services of an officer of the Department of Labour for secretarial and other duties.

Some Deputies have been voicing disappointment at the small number of Safety Committees established under section 73 of the Factories Act, 1955. I share that disappointment. I have expressed my own disappointment on appropriate occasions and communicated it to persons immediately concerned. I am glad to be able to report now that a substantial improvement has taken place, the number of Safety Committees in existence in December, 1966, being 89 as compared with 57 a year earlier.

I shall continue to urge that workers avail themselves of their rights under the Act in this matter, in the interest of promoting safety in places of work. Information on the numbers of Safety Committees will be included in future annual reports of the factory inspectorate.

Work has now started on a review of the existing Acts relating to the welfare of workers but it is too early yet to make a comment on this.

There have been some legislative developments in regard to manpower policy. The Industrial Training Bill is expected to become law very shortly and it should be possible to establish An Chomhairle Traenála, the new training authority, perhaps under a new name, by the start of the new financial year. This body, as well as taking over the functions of An Cheard-Chomhairle, will have power to deal with all types of training, including apprenticeship training. The tasks of the new authority will be both difficult and urgent. We will expect it to tackle these tasks with energy and dispatch. I am providing in the Estimate the substantial sum of £250,000 for An Chomhairle Traenála for the first year of its operation. I wish this to be taken as proof of my determination to press ahead with this important work of training and retraining.

The consultations with employers' and workers' organisations about the proposals for redundancy payments legislation have proved more protracted than I had expected. The main consultations have now been concluded although further talks on a number of points will still be necessary. The drafting of the Bill is well advanced, and I hope to have it circulated and discussed in this House after Easter.

The Redundancy Payments Bill will contain a provision for a scheme of resettlement allowances designed to help unemployed workers who have to move away from their home areas to secure employment. In anticipation of the passing of the legislation I have directed the preparation of a draft scheme for this purpose. The draft scheme will be discussed with the employers' and workers' representatives on the Manpower Advisory Committee in the near future.

I have decided to proceed with the development of the Employment Service in two stages. A start has already been made in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Waterford where separate suitably fitted-out accommodation for the placement work is being provided within the existing exchange premises. I believe that, at the beginning at least, it would be a mistake to locate the placement functions in premises separate from the existing employment exchanges. This is in recognition of the fact that, for some time to come, placement services will be directed largely towards those people who are drawing unemployment benefit or unemployment assistance. I believe that the placement activities would suffer if workers had to go to one building for those purposes and to another to consult the Placement Officer.

Detailed records will be kept of the qualifications and aptitudes of persons seeking work and contracts will be made and kept up with employers about the employment situation in their industries and firms. I hope to have these improved facilities for placement in operation in the selected centres in a matter of weeks. The Placement Officers, to man the new service, are about to be selected and the initial programme of training for them is being drawn up. People prominent in the industrial sector of the community and leading trade union officials will be invited to give talks to the trainees.

I intend that all officers in the Employment Service will be given some training in placement work so that there will be a greater awareness throughout the service of this placement function. I have recently met the exchange managers and stressed to them the importance of placement in their work.

I propose to recruit an industrial psychologist to help in developing the placement and guidance functions of the service and a competition for the purpose will be advertised by the Civil Service Commissioners when certain formalities are completed.

As for long-term development, a review of the organisation and structure of the Employment Service generally will be undertaken within the next few months with a view to planning and implementing permanent measures for the Service.

I had occasion recently to make it clear, in reply to a parliamentary question, that the function of the Employment Service is to put persons who are registered at the exchanges in touch with vacancies notified to the exchanges. The provision of jobs depends on the acceleration of the rate of economic development which, in turn, depends on a variety of factors, including industrial peace, a sense of community responsibility and a realisation that costs must be competitive with costs elsewhere.

The main problem in regard to the establishment of a Manpower Forecasting Service—the recruitment of a suitable expert—has not yet been solved but I am continuing enquiries in the matter and I hope that it will be possible to initiate the service later in the year.

It will be recalled that the White Paper on Manpower Policy stated that information about careers would be made available to the Employment Service and also to the educational authorities who will be responsible for the development of a vocational guidance service for children at school and for school leavers. I have had a study made of the work done on careers information in other countries and I have been exploring ways and means of approaching the task here.

There are so many different types of occupations in industry, commerce, agriculture and the professions that the work involved in preparing, within a short time, a comprehensive range of career information literature could not be performed within the resources of the Department of Labour. To avoid delay, therefore, I decided to enlist the aid of other Government Departments, State-sponsored bodies and various professional and other organisations who would be likely to have available basic information on various occupations. With this in view a circular letter was issued last month to the bodies referred to explaining that it was my intention to produce, before the end of the current school year, an initial series of about 100 leaflets dealing with the occupations of greatest interest to persons seeking employment, each leaflet to set out basic information on the particular occupation in tabloid form.

I shall review the matter in the light of the experience of this initial effort and the reactions of vocational interests and the public generally to it. In case it may be necessary later in the year to commission the preparation of other careers information by personnel outside the public service, I am proposing a provision of £2,000 in Subhead 1 of the Vote to cover any necessary fees.

A section to handle the collection, analysis and dissemination of information on labour matters is being set up in the Department. I propose to give this section the task of processing information on such matters as the movements of pay and conditions in this country and in countries with which we trade, and on developments at home and abroad in industrial relations, trade union law, manpower and employment policies.

As I envisage it, the section will be able not only to provide material of value to the Minister in formulating policy, but also to make up-to-date and relevant information available to trade unions and employers' organisations.

Further, the section will function as a development unit for the Department, receiving and seeking out new ideas and processing them, and making reports on possibilities for improving the Department's services. Suggestions made by Deputies in this connection will, of course, be given special attention.

As far as more fundamental research and inquiries are concerned, a sum of £15,000 is included in the Estimate under Subhead G.

A charge will arise against this subhead in respect of a pilot manpower survey of Drogheda carried out by the Department of Social Science of University College, Dublin. The report of this survey which is expected in the next few months may be of use in future planning.

I am considering some possibilities for research and I am trying to find out what other work is taking place in this field, so as to avoid duplication of effort. Selected projects will be entrusted to qualified personnel.

Following a competition held by the Civil Service Commissioners, an Information Officer will shortly be appointed in the Department. This officer will have the job of preparing for publication material regarding the services administered by the Department, explanations of reasons for policy decisions, and other matters designed to promote a better understanding of the tasks being undertaken and the problems that have to be overcome in having that work done successfully.

The forthcoming White Paper on the EEC will cover the labour and social provisions of the Treaty of Rome and the decisions taken on these matters by the authorities of the Community.

I am arranging to keep in touch with Community developments in this field so that, in the formulation of our policies we can have regard to the changes which will be involved in EEC membership. I hope to visit the headquarters of the Community in Brussels next month for a discussion with the persons responsible for the functioning and development of those provisions of the Treaty which are of concern to my Department.

The customary contribution to the expenses of the International Labour Organisation, of which we have been a member since the early days of the State, is being included in the Estimate. It is proposed again this year to send a delegation representative of Government, employers and workers, to the annual conference in June. I intend to maintain close contact with this organisation and to take advantage of the valuable information and advice which it can make available to member countries.

Particulars of industrial disputes, of the involvement of the Labour Court and the Conciliation Service, and other information on the state of industrial relations in 1966, will be given in the Report of the Labour Court for the year which will be laid before the Dáil in due course.

A notable feature of the year was the tenth round wage increase. As a result of expert economic information made available by the NIEC and other sources, the Government came to the conclusion in the early part of the year that a 3 per cent increase in incomes would be the limit which the prospects for the economy in 1966 would justify. This was unacceptable to the trade union movement who pressed for a general increase of £1 a week, which was, of course, very substantially in excess of the predicted capacity of the economy to bear without disturbance.

After attempts to reach a national wage agreement failed, the Labour Court issued guide lines recommending the negotiation of wage increases not exceeding £1 a week for men and pro rata increases for women and juveniles, these increases to be phased where necessary. The Court recommended, also, that claims for service pay, reduced working hours and extra holidays should be deferred and that claims for other improvements should be left for discussion within each industry.

The basis for this recommendation by the Court is given in the guide lines statement, published on the 21st April, 1966. That document declared that the settlement of claims then current by reference to the expansion of the economy would have much to recommend it, provided that workers were prepared to agree to such a course. The statement went on, however, to say that the damage which would be inflicted by widespread industrial unrest, coupled with the disadvantage springing from a discontented labour force, could very well have worse effects on the national economy than an increase in wages somewhat in excess of what could be covered immediately by an increase in national production.

The choice in April last was, therefore, between, on the one hand, attempting to limit wage and salary increases to the projected increase in national production at the risk of strikes and, on the other hand, industrial peace with the certainty of increased costs and the consequential risks to production, exports and employment. We chose the latter course. We accepted its disadvantages, but did not gain the hoped for benefits.

In the event, national production expanded in 1966 by less than 1 per cent, all incomes increased by 3 per cent, a wages and salaries increasing by about 6 per cent. Indeed the latest, still unpublished, information available to me suggests that wages and salaries are now running at a level of some 8 per cent above that ruling 12 months ago.

As regards trade disputes, the pattern of the previous year continued in 1966. The conciliation service, which handled a record number of cases in 1965, dealt with nearly as many cases last year. During the year the Court issued 124 recommendations, of which 52 were rejected by the workers, a rate of rejection similar to that experienced the year before. In 32 of these cases, settlements were reached subsequently as a result of further conciliation conferences or direct negotiations between the parties. This situation cannot be regarded as satisfactory.

There were some lengthy strikes during the year, notably in Dublin docks, in paper-making, in the ESB, in CIE and in the banks. By the end of June, that is, before the Department of Labour was set up, half way through the year, the number of man-days lost through strikes had already exceeded the record, the unenviable record of 1965, a situation which must give us all cause for real concern.

This is the background against which the proposals for amending legislation on industrial relations and trade union law have been discussed. These proposals were circulated to interested organisations in April last and, by September, a large volume of varied and divergent views had been received. I then met the main employers' and trade union organisations and, in the light of my discussions with them I agreed to set up two working parties representative of the Department of Labour and the FUE and of the Department and the ICTU.

I have permitted these discussions to proceed at what has appeared to some to be an inordinate length, in the hope of achieving unanimity or at least a consensus among the interests concerned. While a measure of agreement has been secured for some of the proposals, I am now satisfied that the complete agreement of those interests cannot reasonably be expected. I have therefore decided to propose to the Government the preparation of an Industrial Relations Bill and a Trade Union Bill which will reflect, firstly, the highest common factor of agreement reached and, secondly, my own proposals on the matters on which agreement is not practicable but on which it is nevertheless necessary to promote legislation.

Meanwhile, discussions are taking place with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the Federated Union of Employers about the procedure to be adopted for holding inquiries into significant trade disputes with a view to learning lessons and drawing conclusions which may help to prevent the recurrence of damaging disputes. I am also in touch with the International Labour Office about this, to see whether that organisation has any advice or assistance to offer.

I have been keeping the conduct of industrial relations under close survey and I have taken every opportunity to discuss the subject with employer organisations and trade unions.

I am satisfied that continuous informal contact between the Department of Labour and these interests will help in preventing developments which could lead to a deterioration in relations between management and workers. I have therefore decided to detach a senior officer of the Department, to such extent as may be necessary, for the general purpose of maintaining the necessary contacts.

This officer, who has long experience in this field will carry out special negotiations and inquiries on my behalf. I have already appointed him to preside over discussions between the ESB and the trade unions and staff associations with the object of working out improved procedures through which pay and conditions in the board could be negotiated and which would obviate breakdowns of the kind which precipitated the enactment of the Electricity (Special Provisions) Act, 1966.

I have made it known that, if a reasonable assurance of uninterrupted supplies of electricity can be given as a result of these negotiations, I shall be prepared to propose the repeal of the Act.

I contemplate the duties of the officer in question as extending to other important areas should the need arise and to investigate informally developments or practices which may be giving rise to uneasiness. He will also be available to give informal advice and guidance to parties seeking it.

In November last I promised the House that I would arrange for parties engaged in negotiations on pay and conditions to be supplied with information on national economic affairs, so that they could have proper regard to national trends when making settlements. It is my present intention to make this information available as soon as practicable after the end of each calendar year, relying on such statistical and other factual information as may be available for the year.

The first of this series of information covering the year 1966, was published at the beginning of this month, after it had been made available to the FUE and the ICTU.

I later saw both of these organisations and discussed with them conclusions emerging from the economic trends disclosed by the published figures. I undertook to announce what my own conclusions are and this I now propose to do.

It is clear that the country's first economic priority must be to raise production and increase employment. As our goods must sell, at home and abroad, with the products of other countries, they must be fully competitive. If this is not achieved, we face the certainty of loss of production and loss of employment.

Attempts to generate a higher level of production and employment, or even to retain the existing level, will be frustrated if we have to suffer the interruptions of strikes like those of the past few years. Stoppages because of strikes are also a deterrent to investment in Ireland.

Resumption of the programmed rate of economic growth will seriously be retarded if money incomes race ahead of economic growth, as took place in the non-agricultural sectors of the economy in 1966.

To help industries to recover and maintain competitiveness all developments which will operate to raise costs must be deferred as much as possible. This is particularly important because the costs of British manufacturers, who are our main competitors, have been rising much more slowly than ours.

The country requires, at this time, (i) that managements should intensify and expedite their efforts to modernise and adapt their undertakings and expand production, and (ii) that a substantial improvement in productivity should be assured before there is any general increase in money incomes or other developments which would lead to increased costs.

Otherwise, there is a real danger of people losing their jobs and a certainty that the purchasing power of the wage packet will decline. I am aware that a long-term programme adopted by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions last year included some objectives which would not immediately raise industrial costs but which would, nevertheless, represent considerable improvements for workers. I would favour priority being given to the attainment of these improvements in negotiations between employers and trade unions at the present time.

The greatest restraint will also be necessary in prices. Some part of the slow-down in the increase in the consumer price index in the latter part of 1966 must be due to the exercise of the Government's powers of price control.

In the present situation my responsibility is two-fold. I am concerned to ensure that claims are dealt with in a manner which will produce settlements in accordance with the general interest of the country. I am concerned also to see that this is brought about in a peaceful way.

I may say that, while comments made by leaders of employer and trade union interests on the information published on economic trends, and public reaction generally, have been responsible, some claims at present being pursued do not reflect appreciation of the need of the times. There is now a real prospect that some unions will press claims which, if conceded, will raise industrial costs to non-competitive levels, leading to a loss of orders, a loss of production and a loss of jobs. Further, there is evidence that some employers are disposed to concede claims even where they realise that their firms must lose business and reduce staff as a result.

Both employers and unions have difficult decisions to face here — the employer to concede a claim his industry cannot meet without damage, or face the dislocation caused by a strike; the union executive to do what he can say is his job in pressing for what his members demand, or risk unpopularity by refusing to give support to demands which he knows are too much for now or are coming too fast for the community, the community, of course, including his own members.

No sector of the community, or combination of sectors, has the right to behave in a thoughtless, irresponsible and destructive way towards the community. Under our arrangements for regulating these affairs, parties freely negotiate and settle pay and conditions. This is the system which employers and organised labour profess to want preserved; it is a system which the Government also would wish to retain and develop.

If, however, the working of free collective bargaining threatens to undermine the progress of our country's development and the means of livelihood of our people, then there is an obligation on the Government to make proposals to this House for the changes necessary to safeguard the community, including the workers themselves. If, having warned of the inevitable consequences, first, of income increases or other charges in excess of the growth of production, whether arranged by negotiation or secured by industrial action, and second, of misuse of the procedures for dealing with industrial disputes, we still find these damaging practices persisting, the Government will be compelled to come to the House for the powers necessary to deal with the situation.

I have long clung to the hope that the practitioners in industrial relations here would behave responsibly and refrain from the practices which have forced the authorities elsewhere to discard the system of free collective bargaining, for it is clear to me that legislative changes made in this field can be reversed only with great difficulty. Some people believe that if the system is altered, even for a temporary period, it will not be restored.

If recent trends are not corrected, however, I shall be forced to invite the Government to consider seriously the steps which ought to be taken to protect the community from the selfishness and thoughtlessness which appear to actuate so many to-day. I shall welcome the comments of Deputies on this, and indeed on the other aspects of the work and responsibility of the Department of Labour to which I have referred.

Mr. Donegan

The Minister has divided his speech into two sections, the first of which is the various steps he has taken for a more modern approach to labour problems and the institutions he is setting up. I should like to talk about them first, and then I shall move to the more serious part of this speech where he indicates Government policy in relation to industrial relations and where he takes a very strong line.

I should like to preface my remarks by saying that when we enter the Common Market, we shall be facing competition in relation to our industrial goods which I think many people in this country underestimate. Quite recently I had the opportunity of being abroad in a small country, not in the Common Market. I can say that what I saw there and what I know to be also happening in countries within the Common Market would suggest that there are certain industries here that must, if not go to the wall, certainly be very seriously affected by any competition from abroad. The levels of technology and the level of applicacation of machinery there are something that do not come in six months. If the Minister and the Government were geniuses and if every businessman and man on the factory floor were geniuses, we are still in the position of being, in point of time, behind, and whatever is done, there is going to be quite a tough time ahead when we are in the Common Market. The rumour is going around that the British will get in in March, 1970. Maybe they spread that rumour in hopes; maybe they did not. However, if we take that as a date, there is no doubt about the fact that from the point of view of employment, productivity and exports and, perhaps more important still, the preservation of our home market for our own factory operatives to produce goods for, a a serious problem must be tackled.

We must remember that all our factories here, or most of them, were developed as industries to supply our own people, and our tariffs ensured that there was no real competition there. When these tariffs disappear or start to disappear, then not only will we have to fight for our export potential but also for our home market, the home market which has employed our industrial workers for decades. This is a serious situation and the Minister has dealt with it seriously. We may differ as to whether he has taken the right or the wrong line in some of his statements this morning, but I mean that in no derogatory way. At least he has shown he is absolutely serious and, in my view, he has to be serious. Anyone who looks at the situation will know that such is the case.

In relation to the factory inspectorate the Minister has increased the number from 22 to 28. That is probably the right thing to do in the prevailing circumstances, and it is something that is not too flamboyant or expensive. He wanted to indicate by voting £250,000 to An Chomhairle Traenála that he is extremely interested in the development of this institution during the coming year. It may be that he might not spend the whole £250,000 because, as I see it, is quite difficult to get something like this off the ground in a short space of time. If I were to criticise the Government in this regard, I would say they are too late. The Minister is trying to convince us that they are not too late. I realise he is trying to speed things up and that the operation of such an institution as An Chomhairle Traenála is absolutely necessary. Whether or not its full application to the task in time is possible is something about which we must wait and see.

The fact that the scheme for redundancy payments is said by the Minister to be only at the draft stage is something that also indicates the late starting on the whole question of the retraining and replacing of workers and facing up to the changes that are inevitable when we move from a closed tariff situation to a situation of almost free trade. It seems a small start to restrict the employment services to the main cities.

There is a point of difference in the House and outside as to whether the employment services should be retained within the present exchange structure or re-established in a new institution. Employment exchanges, which at the beginning were meant as institutions to replace workers, turned out in practice to be no more than unemployment exchanges where men and women came to sign their names and draw unemployment benefit and where in fact employers never went to look for workers. Therefore, the first purpose of the employment exchanges was lost and in its place arose the stigma of the unemployment exchange. I do not know if it is wise to try to change the situation back to the original thinking and put our officials into the employment services.

I suppose if you think in terms of information available, it is probably right to use the present exchanges. However, as I have said, there is the stigma of the employment exchange. This is the age of selling lines and it will not be a good selling line for the employment service if they are operated under the label of what had become known as the unemployment exchanges long before 1967.

The Minister has told us we are waiting for an expert on manpower forecasting. There is an atmosphere of uncertainty in this matter. We are facing a situation where a lot of people in various factories will be displaced and need replacement and it would be a good thing if we could forecast these needs and difficulties. There has been forecasting going on during the past few years. I recall Deputy Dillon asking across the floor of the House of the then Taoiseach, Deputy Lemass; "What will happen in the car assembly industry?" The Taoiseach's immediate answer was that in that industry there would be a problem of replacement of workers. He said we should examine the car assembly industry in an effort to put it on a competitive footing.

Since then there have been discussions, and parliamentary questions have been asked. At present the Minister for Industry and Commerce is holding meetings with the principals and the operatives and their representatives. That industry is one example of where manpower forecasting has had to be converted into real consideration, into real measures, the result of which we have not heard yet. The least we can say is that real measures are being considered in an effort to do something about the difficulties in that industry. However, we are behind time: we are slow if we are to abide by the Minister's statement that we must wait for an expert on manpower forecasting. We have a classical example in the car assembly industry and obviously if one spoke to the principals of many industries throughout the country, one would find that a considerable amount of forecasting is necessary but that in a considerable number of cases an expert is not needed.

Within the structure of State there are many men and groups of men who could be deputed to do this work. It is work that cannot wait; it is work that should be going on now. That is my criticism of the Minister's naive statement here today that we are awaiting an expert in manpower forecasting. I say we must come down from the ethereal region in which the Minister seems to place manpower forecasting. I point to the car assembly industry and I could give many more examples but I do not wish to because I might point the finger at industries and suggest they may be in trouble. The principals of certain industries know they may be in trouble.

The Minister has taken a strong line in relation to prices and incomes, outside and inside the House. This morning he repeated the well-known statement based on known statistics at the Government's disposal that incomes in the country last year rose by three per cent, the amount forecast for the increase in the gross national product. As I said when this brand of statistics was first produced, it is mathematically mad. If the gross national product rises as a result of the export of a greater number of cattle, or if it falls because of the failure to export those cattle, or alternatively, if it rises because of higher production of industrial goods, the amount the community properly can withdraw as increased remuneration is an entirely different matter; and this rule of thumb method of producing a figure for gross national product and a figure against that for what you can take out is an entirely incorrect mathematical formula. It is just an easy ratio for the Government to produce and thrust at us when we come to criticise them on this point.

At the beginning last year the message from the Government was that there could not be any spectacular increase in incomes in 1966. The trade unions did not accept that and the general increase of £1 a week ensued. The Government are properly to be criticised because in 1966 they were reaping the whirlwind, having sowed the wild wind at the time of the two by-elections when they recommended the 12 per cent wage increase. At that time such a recommendation was wrong for two reasons. It was wrong, first of all, because of the time and it was wrong because, when the trade unions and the employers could not agree, a certain situation was put to them involving the period of time over which the agreement would apply. The trade unions were thus codded into accepting a figure high enough to satisfy them and the employers were confronted with the long period before the next increase would be sought.

What was forgotten at the time was that prices would rise, as they did within nine months. Price increases always follow increases in income and on this occasion workers found quite soon that they were not any better off. This was all the result of political juggling, of movements of prices and wages in order to achieve success at the polls. If people in 1966 found themselves worse off with more money in their pockets, who can blame them or their unions if energetically they went out to get more money? That is what happened last year.

The Minister has indicated that from figures at his disposal there has been an eight per cent increase in salaries and wages throughout the country. I agree there probably has been. Then there was prices stabilisation legislation. There never was any need for such an order. It has caused have in many instances. It has caused injustices in employment. If the rate of income increase had been negotiated properly, there would have been no need for such prices orders. If such negotiation had occurred two years previously, the 1966 situation would never have arisen. I do not blame any workers' representatives, any trade unionists, for seeking to get back what was taken away from the workers by price increases. Addressing harangues to people who are on fixed weekly wages out of which they have not very much left on Monday morning will not hold water unless people can be convinced that there is honesty and a fair approach by the Government on wages and prices.

The question of 1966 being a bad year for industrial strikes is something on which I do not quite go with the Minister. By June the number of man days lost exceeded the bad year of 1965. He gave us the main places where the strikes took place: papermaking, CIE, ESB, banks and docks. The bank strike hit nobody; it helped some people who were worrying about their overdrafts. Docks are notorious places all over the world for strikes. I met a sea captain who had an eight weeks strike in Copenhagen because they wanted to load pig iron on a boat exactly as they loaded it a month before. For eight weeks there they were, wondering whether the iron was going to be loaded this way or across the boat.

The ESB and CIE strikes are directly related to the Government and the Government's approach to employment and to the structure of wages generally. The main one was the papermaking strike. I feel that if you took the general spectrum of industrial and supply services in Ireland in 1966, you could not say, no matter what the statistics say, that it was a bad year for industrial unrest. I think 1965 was far worse. Maybe the statistics do not say that but it is my view. I feel there has been a fair amount of restraint on the part of the trade unions and their workers in this regard.

With regard to the Electricity (Special Provisions) Act, 1966, the Minister indicated before, and indicates again this morning, that all he wants is an assurance of the continuance of supply of electricity and he will repeal the Act. I want to remind him of the position of the Fine Gael Party in this regard which has often, from all various sides of the House, been misquoted. It is that they put down an amendment that this legislation should stand for six months to give both the Government and the employees and their representatives in the ESB a chance to talk about it for six months. As a principle, they did not believe — and this is the difference between the Government and the country on this whole problem — that legislation in this House could make anybody do anything in relation to industrial relations. That is a queer way of putting it but you cannot make a person go into work if he does not want to.

If you make it a criminal offence, you will find that the people with whom he associates every day of his life do not accept it as a criminal offence as they would accept as a criminal offence my robbing the Minister's wallet. If I were sent to jail, for this, they would say it was the proper thing to do. The punishment to me would not be going to jail; it would be my loss of standing in the community. If you legislate as was done in this regard and leave it there as permanent legislation and as a result somebody who does not go into work is sent to jail or punished, that person is not accepted by anybody as a criminal and the sort of legislation we can pass here for this purpose just does not work.

The Minister tells us what we should do. He says:

The country requires, at this time, that managements should intensify and expedite their efforts to modernise and adapt their undertakings and expand production.

I should like to remind the Minister that while a new industry coming in here can get up to 50 per cent grant and can then go to the Industrial Credit Company, and very often do a transfer of the grant into loan and get further moneys by way of loan, the established industries are limited to a maximum of 25 per cent for an adaptation grant and they must seek the 75 per cent elsewhere. The established industries have largely given a debenture to a bank or they may have got their funds from the public and they are not as attractive to a Government institution such as the Industrial Credit Company, so that telling established industries to intensify and expedite their efforts in this situation is sour advice indeed.

I could give an instance of an industry where they eventually had to leave their old premises. They spent all the money they could lay their hands on on the adaptation of another premises but of course about three-quarters of what they did was new building, and they got £15,000 of a grant. They employed exactly 50 per cent more workers doing exactly the same sort of work, and both are for export, as a new industry only three-quarters of a mile away. The new industry got £136,000 of a grant. Both industries, I am glad to say, are blooming, both exporting and doing well.

It will be realised that there are many of the existing industries which are faced with a situation whereby when the Common Market comes, they may not be able to continue to employ their workers, or as many of them, and financially at the present moment, in the middle of this credit squeeze, they cannot do anything about it. Yet because they are defined as old industries, the approach to them is different from the approach to a new industry. Our record of success in relation to new industries has not been good. I would say our record of success in supporting old industries has been much better, notwithstanding the smallness of the helps given and the fact that they were given much later in the day than grants to new industries.

We come then to the hard part of the Minister's speech:

No sector of the community, or combination of sectors, has the right to behave in a thoughtless, irresponsible and destructive way towards the community.

We all agree on that.

Under our arrangements for regulating these affairs, parties freely negotiate and settle pay and conditions.

Then we have:

If however, the working of free collective bargaining threatens to undermine the progress of our country's development and the means of livilihood of our people....

The Minister further says:

I want to suggest that if by that the Minister means legislation which could be described as the big stick, legislation which is going to remove permanently the right of the worker to negotiate and legislation which is going to outlaw strikes in any way or another, then the position will clearly be that your people will not obey this legislation. While you can bring a horse to the water, you cannot make him drink, and on this your legislation and you yourself will fall down. I want to suggest from this side of the House that if free collective bargaining has become difficult, then the making of arrangements between employer and employee and the giving of things that are not given already in return for contracts of service are really the things that matter and that on this basis we must proceed.

Before I come to that, let us take the background about which the Minister is speaking. The Minister circulated proposals for the amendment of the Industrial Relations Act and Trade Union Acts and there were certain changes to be made in the Labour Court. "The Chairman and Deputy or Deputies" at point 4 "will be appointed by the Minister." At point 5 "the Minister will appoint the persons of his choice to be members of the Court". At point 8 "the Minister will draw up panels of persons having qualifications in economic, social, industrial or legal matters". Then we come to an arbitration award at No. 13: "For a period of three months after the issue of an arbitration award, the protection of the Trade Disputes Act, 1906, will not operate in the event of a strike by the workers on the same issue as was before the Court when making the award, except where the strike arises from the refusal or failure otherwise of the employer to implement the award."

We come along to point 41 where the Minister takes unto himself the right to grant a negotiation licence to a union or to refuse it. The Minister mentioned the fact that he allowed protracted discussions to go on in the hope of agreement. He did not have to allow it to go on too long because I quote from Trade Union Viewpoint of last September. The heading on page 6 is: “Minister's Proposals on Trade Union Law Rejected”. It is an address by Mr. Ruaidhri Roberts:

Paragraphs 41 and 42, he said, gave to the Minister absolutely and finally, save only for an appeal to the courts on grounds which are not stated, the right to determine, not only whether a new trade union will be permitted to come into being but also whether an existing union will be permitted to continue.

These are powers which I think are not necessary. These are powers which indicate that the Government, because there have been problems of employment and strikes, have taken fright and believe that the whole thing is impossible; that the trade unions are incorrigible and that legislation, and tough legislation, is the only way to deal with it. I want to suggest they cannot deal with it, for the reasons I have given, namely, that you can bring a horse to the water but you cannot make him drink.

I quote from the Irish Times an alternative procedure; I have lost the date of the paper but it is an article headed: “550 workers pledge: No strikes for 3 years”:

A new productivity agreement signed yesterday between Aer Lingus and 11 trade unions representing 550 tradesmen employed in the maintenance of aircraft, specifically provides that for the next three years there will be no lock-outs, strikes, slow-down or curtailment of work or overtime.

The agreement — hailed by Mr. Michael J. Dargan, the general manager designate of Aer Lingus, as a milestone in industrial relations in Ireland — provides for an immediate increase in wages; a relaxation of traditional demarcation lines between trades; new flexibility of shift arrangements, and one clause binding both sides to Labour Court rulings in the event of failure to settle by negotiation.

I want to suggest there are certain things the worker has not got today, or every worker has not got today, which he will have in five years' time. One is a decent severance payment provision for a worker who is disemployed, through no fault of his own, after long years service in a company. It is a brutal thing that companies doing well make no provision against the dismissal of men which might arise; and the giving to them of one week's wages to take home to their wives and families. One of the things which will have to come is a severance payment for long term workers in industry.

Pension rights are something that should also be looked after. While they are available in large companies, in semi-State bodies and in other such places, if you go around the country, you will find that very few of our small industries have pension rights. I suggest that the proposal made last year by Fine Gael—which is very much in line with the Aer Lingus agreement—is the one that could do most, namely, that the strengthening of the powers of the Labour Court is not a solution to our dilemma, that the strengthening of legislation by the Government is not the solution, but that the setting up of a framework for agreement between worker and employer is the solution.

I would suggest that what should be offered by employers to a new worker —and the conciliation office of the Labour Court could be used for this purpose—is a contract of service which guarantees that worker certain severance payments, if he is disemployed after long years of service, and an arrangement by the employer that each week there would be set aside a small amount to ensure that that severance payment would be available.

With regard to seniority pay, I believe that if a worker is 15 years in an industry doing a job and is senior to a man who came in two years before, some extra payment should be made to him. In return for that, the worker might do, and I think would do, what the workers in Aer Lingus did, namely, agree to be bound by a limited court rule in return for what he has got. The worker would also be prepared to allow this flexibility of movement between trades in order to give greater productivity. He would be prepared to give those things if he can be given that feeling of security, of being wanted within the company.

I am quite certain that any legislation proposed in this House which tends to bind the worker to go to his job, whether or not he likes it, will not work. I am certain that any tough line will not work and I think the Government, in producing the tough line of the Minister in the latter part of his speech, are making a cardinal error. What is needed is more patience, more conciliation and more proposals such as I have outlined for arrangements like those made with Aer Lingus, whereby, in return for a contract of service giving the worker things he has not got at the moment, he will give things to the employer, namely, a guarantee of work in return, a guarantee of a delay period if there is a dispute whereby the Labour Court will be given a length of time to discuss the matter, to make recommendations before there is a lightning strike or an official strike within a short period of time. This is the way we can do something for our industrial relations here and we can do it in no other way. I am aware that no matter what proposals you put up about what happens to workers if they invalidate their contracts of service—if, for instance, Aer Lingus broke their word, if there were a strike, which was over and you came to have a resumption of work—even though the workers may have broken their contracts of service, they would want all their benefits back.

To that extent, this is a one-sided operation; it is giving things away in return for promised things which, if they are not given in the long term, you cannot do a lot about. But I would suggest that the trade unions are not that impossible. I would suggest that the workers of this country are not impossible at all and that, in practice, contracts of service would be adhered to. In my negotiations with trade unions, I have always found that no matter how tough the bargain was, once it was made, it was adhered to for the time indicated. On this basis of experience—and I am sure every other businessman in the country would give similar views—I suggest that the sort of legislation proposed by the Minister on the production of a contract of service, and agreements between employers and employees, whereby employees would get greater security— certain benefits which they will have anyway in the next few years and which they might get now in return for offering the security of their work and their efforts—should be aimed at increased productivity, without restrictive practices.

The matter of the Minister, in relation to a trade union, taking the right to grant or remove a negotiation licence—which he did not mention in his speech but which is in his proposals —is something I think to be a cardinal error. I would have no objection, and neither, I am sure, would the trade unions, if certain requirements were laid down, namely, that a trade union should have a certain number of members for two or three years and that there should be an examination of its books—if it was a new union—by a government inspector or a Labour Court inspector to see if all those members were paying members. These are things which would be right and proper, but for a Government to decide that a union cannot have a negotiation licence because they do not like the colour of its bright blue eyes is wrong. I would suggest that point 41 and point 42 are two points on which the Minister might think again.

I do not want to delay the House much longer on this, except to say, as I began, that the Minister has one thing in his favour, that is, that he realises the seriousness of our situation as we approach free trade. I have not the slightest doubt that there are individual factories in this country which will be very hard hit. The Minister is getting down to doing something about this. I have indicated certain items on which, in my opinion, he has moved too late, too little and too slow. I have indicated certain other things in which I believe there is not much more he can do or any other way than the way in which he is doing it.

I may be wrong and he may be wrong in some of those matters. I certainly say he is wrong in his tough approach to legislation here, in relation to trade unions and to industrial relations and that he should think again. Even if a longer period of conciliation talks is necessary he should have them and because of his own personal charm and friendship with everybody, I suggest he might go and talk to them himself a bit more instead of leaving it to his officials.

Mr. M. O'Leary

We have always divided the work of this Department into two areas, the area where we could see it properly helping in this problem of circumstantial arrangements between employers and employees that would expedite their getting together and working things out with the best possible solution. We have always considered this the most valuable work of this Department. From the beginning, we have been worried that this Department should take sides with one or other of the parties involved in industrial disputes. We have been warned from the start that this would be a danger facing this Department. Unless it could preserve a neutral status as between employers and employees, the value of the Department would be undermined.

We warned about this from the start because we have always favoured the idea in our modern economy that a great deal of this work, because of its importance, should be under one Department and that that Department should concentrate exclusively on the importance of the relations between employers and employees. We have pointed out that one of the necessary conditions for maintaining its value to both sides is that it should remain neutral as between one side and the other. We pointed out that if it did not remain neutral, there was a danger that one side or the other would begin to distrust, and that once this distrust was established between the Federated Union of Employers and the workers, the value of this Department would be curtailed in the future.

The Minister, in one section of his report, referred to factory inspectors and we can applaud the increase in numbers from 22 to 28. We should look seriously at the kind of qualifications we are looking for in factory inspectors. Probably our criteria for the appointment of factory inspectors dated back to quite a number of years ago and the time is overdue to estimate again what should be the qualifications of factory inspectors, taking into account the particular skills necessary. The old idea regarding his qualifications and the training he should have needs to be updated. We should certainly consider what training he would want in industrial psychology and other things. It is a good thing that the number has been increased from 22 to 28.

Reference was made to extra help for NISO. This can be seen as a good move but the Minister should see that the money given to the National Industrial Safety Organisation is spent on better safety precautions and that the greater portion of its activities is not devoted to seminars. One of the things we have at the moment is too many seminars. It appears to me that we feel we have achieved something if we show that there has been great harmony over a week-end when a seminar has been held on a contentious subject and nobody hits anybody else over that week-end. It appears to me that NISO would do well if there were more activity in the setting-up of safety committees rather than on two-or three-day seminars in which we get a lot of people who may already be converted to safety in the factory. I believe that NISO should consider utilising at least 90 per cent of the money given to it on a missionary activity of evangelising those who have not heard the word "safety" and are not the least concerned about it. If NISO did this, they would be playing a very effective role in spreading safety throughout industry.

The Minister would be well advised to get them to set up more committees. When the Minister gives money to such an organisation, he should see that he is getting pound for pound value for it. There is a tendency, when money is being disbursed by Ministers, to give it to certain organisations without making sure that they are getting value for it. I am sure the present Minister must be well aware of this tendency and will be on his guard against it.

It is a good idea also that in the future in the annual report of the factory inspectorate we will have an idea of how many safety committees there are. It was not a satisfactory state of affairs that the only valid way of finding out this information was to ask a parliamentary question on it. If we want to increase the number of those committees, it is important that we should be able, year by year, to estimate what progress has been made in this area.

I notice from the Minister's speech that work has been started on a review of the existing Acts relating to the welfare of workers. This is a pretty good idea. This is a most contentious area and one in which this Department can achieve a good deal of work. A good deal of work can certainly be done in regard to the tidying up of the Act. We should make sure that things in this area which have survived for years are brought up to date in accordance with new conditions.

With regard to redundancy payments, the Minister has said that consultations with employers' and workers' organisations about the proposals for redundancy legislation have been more protracted than he thought. Perhaps it is a good thing that there has been some delay in the negotiations which have taken place. Quite naturally, we can understand why there have been protracted negotiations. The employers have one figure in regard to this and the trade unions have another. In fact, what has been going on behind the scenes is that there have been negotiations in regard to the amount of the redundancy payments.

While those negotiations have been proceeding, it has been possible for workers to be laid off, particularly as a result of technological changes, without any redundancy payment. The trade unions provide protection for people who may have to leave their employment. One of the things those people will want to watch is that the idea is not taken up by employers that under legislation passed here, a Redundancy Bill, which is legislation purely on a minimum basis, this minimum price does not become the maximum to be given by employers throughout the country. There should be a Plimsoll line, a minimum rate, laid down for a worker who becomes redundant. That, in fact, merely sets a safety netting for real negotiation to take place between the employer and the worker's representatives for a proper redundancy payment from the employer to the worker.

We should, I think, be aware of the danger of considering the redundancy problem as one that can be settled on a purely cash basis because, no matter what the basis is, the real loss to the individual is the loss of employment, an employment he may have followed for 20 or 30 years. Just as we regard an employer as having a stake in his factory, so the worker equally has a stake in his job and, when he is deprived of his job, as a result of technological change, as a result of his firm's rationalising and improving their efficiency, he goes in the grand cause of improvement in efficiency. Surely the employing firm then has an obligation to him and that obligation should be met on the basis of providing an alternative job.

This is our priority. The provision of a job is the fundamental necessity and it should be the background to any redundancy payment. Here, the Minister throws up his hands. I do not blame him because the number of new jobs created is a mere drop in the ocean. It is not sufficient for the number of applicants coming on to the labour market each year and, if I were a pessimist, I would say that the darkest background to the future of the Department is the lack of new jobs in the economy and the stagnation that appears to be overcoming the economy. This makes the bright new world of manpower policy, placement services, employment services, the training Bill, all seem rather far-fetched in conception in view of the lack of progress in the provision of new jobs. Unless the position improves, many of the new measures with which the Department is concerned will, in fact, prove so many pipe dreams. Services which may look all right will matter very little indeed in the industrial world if the employment position does not pick up.

People ask why we do not have more contract agreements between unions and employers. We have had a few, which many of us think of considerable value, such as those with Aer Lingus, Roadstone, and a few more. We should like to see, if the economy were progressing, many more of these contracts. The great difference between employer and employee relations in this country and the countries of Western Europe resides in the fact that we have never known full employment and it does not appear as if we will know anything about it in the foreseeable future. What we are attempting here is the bringing in of the sophisticated methods other countries use in a condition of something approaching full employment and it is more than questionable if we will succeed in our efforts against the employment market position we have. I am one of those, however, who think this is at least worth trying.

Redundancy payments are, as I have said, a Plimsoll line, something introduced by the Government. These redundancy payments should be of some value but it is regrettable that there has been this delay occasioned by concern for nothing except this cash payment. It is regrettable that, because of the protracted nature of the negotiations between employer organisations and the unions, these redundancy payments are not available to workers unemployed over the past 12 months or two years. Many workers throughout the country have been laid off as a result of technological change.

I was in Graiguenamanagh last Sunday at a meeting of my union. There is almost a death instinct creeping over that small town. The canal has practically closed down. The flour mill has closed. The owner of the flour mill—a large monopoly whose owner I shall not name—is ready to sell this flour mill to someone who will start an alternative business. There is a wide discrepancy between the old industry and the new one coming in and it takes a considerable stretch of the imagination to visualise some of the older workers who have lost their employment being absorbed in the new venture. In this connection I think at once of the brewery that closed down in Laois-Offaly. The alternative coming in was a chicken factory. Can one see a brewery worker used to bunging barrels turning round to tend chickens in a chicken factory? What relationship is there between bunging barrels and tending chickens? I do not know.

These are the realities which must be faced in this grand scheme of manpower policy and replacement services. There are many small towns languishing away throughout the country, dying for lack of industry and lack of planning. I draw attention to their position here in order that we may be aware of their position. Unless we establish enterprises which can draw on the people in the areas, they will be drawn to Britain and to the larger towns throughout the country. In Graiguenamanagh there is quite a pool of skilled labour and it will be a tragedy if this pool is permitted to drain away or to be dissipated over large areas in Britain and elsewhere. So much for redundancy payment. It is a great tragedy there have been such protracted negotiations.

We mentioned on an earlier occasion that we thought it a great pity the Minister should pour the new wine of placement services into the old bottles of the employment exchanges. I do not know whether or not this constitutes economising, but, so bad has been the impression created on the workers by the employment exchanges, it is hard to see a newly-painted partition and a new glass office marked "Employment Service", "Placement Service", and so on, constituting a radical change in the minds of most workers looking for a job. The employment exchange in the minds of many workers is a near relation to the old poorhouse and it is difficult to visualise any great change taking place by having the placement services located in these offices. We believe the employment and placement services should be on their own, concerned only with the provision of more employment. They should be separate from the old labour exchange. The Minister has lumped them together. Presumably he has his reasons.

He mentioned that people prominent in the industrial sector and leading trade union officials will be invited to give talks to trainees. That may be of some assistance but he would want to beware of falling into the trap of seminari, which is quite a temptation in these busy days. Even Churchill found danger inherent in dialogue and the Minister would want to beware of that danger.

He admits the employment service can succeed only against the background of what he describes as the acceleration of the rate of development of jobs. That is quite true. Unless there is an expanding number of jobs, the employment service will not be very effective. I know that some people have argued, from continental experience, that it assists towards the achievement of something approaching full employment if we do have a proper placement service. This may be, and while it is certainly going against the experience of other countries, it is worth trying.

Certainly the overall economic policy of the Government is on trial at present and on the verdict of that trial will depend the success of a great deal of the work of the Department. Earlier I remarked that this Department has this two-sided nature and that it has to be extremely careful about the delicate balance as between employers and employees and about how it will treat this delicate question which is a crucial one in the kind of society which we have. The Minister is in grave danger of losing the confidence of one side in these negotiations between the employer and the worker; he is in grave danger of misrepresenting his Department, of having it being represented to workers as the other face of the employer organisation. Government has a rather unhappy knack, when stepping into this area, of quoting statistics which apparently suit only the employers' side. Ever since the "Closing the Gap" days, the employers without embarrassment can quote statistics provided by Government Departments in support of their own claims without any concession on the wages front to employees. This has been the case and the unhappy experience of the past in regard to Government Departments when they speak out ex cathedra on economic matters. It is always the case that they come down on the employers' side.

The Department of Labour have now begun to produce their statistics to prove their version of what should take place this year. This is an extremely hazardous undertaking. There is quite an amount to be done by this Department, which would be valuable, without the Department taking on this matter of statistics, using statistics and attempting to provide information that would prove that such and such a bargain would be the only possible one in this year. The Minister in his speech goes back briefly to the history of wage increases and speaks about the tenth round. To my mind, that round was misnamed because my impression was that it was a stopgap between the ninth round and the remains of the 12 per cent. The Minister says that an investigation of the economy proved that not more than three per cent could be granted. Did anybody carry out an investigation of living costs of the vast majority of people? Would it not be a good headline for the Department to begin to produce statistics on the cost of living and the living standards of ordinary people when they are pressed to look for more wages?

While the Minister produces his statistics in regard to the central economy, the position at that time was that the ordinary people could no longer survive without looking for some kind of increase. Indeed, we might say that a number of unions became very unpopular with then members in trying to push across the idea of a mere £1 increase. It is about time the Government got this into their heads, that it is too much to ask ordinary trade union officials to become policemen of the economy. The trade union official is a busy enough man answering the claims of his members without being asked to become a a fully-fledged policeman on the conduct of the economy and being asked to urge restraint on his members on all occasions when his members can look around and ask: "Where is the restraint anywhere else? Am I to be a member of a union that asks me to restrain myself on each and every occasion?" We are putting too great a strain on the democratic trade union movement by asking them to act as unofficial policemen in regard to the economy.

It appears that the weakness that many have seen in the structure of the Court is that both sides in industry apparently consider the recommendation of the Labour Court to be purely a stage on the way to an ultimate settlement. Earlier, people in looking at the Court considered it to be the very final point of appeal. There is a danger growing up that both sides in industry will regard the Labour Court recommendations as giving a figure that will be a negotiable figure in a final settlement. This applies to both sides in industrial negotiations because we have employers—and this applies to many of our large State concerns—sending in personnel messenger boys to negotiate with unions, who do not have any authority whatever to come to any meaningful negotiation with the unions, and we have unions on the other hand concerned purely with the ABC stages away past the Labour Court recommendations to a final settlement. The accusation is made on the union side that very often this is a plea made by employers: "Why cannot we have crisp negotiators who would come to a settlement over a cup of coffee or over lunch and there will be no going back on their decisions?"

Unions are these awkward cumbersome organisations that do have members and the shareholders of a union are larger in number and more vociferous and more demanding of their rights than the shareholders of any firm. The structures of both organisations show that we could have, on the one hand, some real application of power on the firm's side because the structure of a firm shows this could be done, but, on the other side, we cannot get away from the necessity of reporting back to the shareholders in a union's organisation of members. I would say that there is this tendency growing up in negotiations to regard the Court as purely a stage on the path towards ultimate settlement. The Court cannot be absolved of some blame for this process because the figures given here show that the Court is accepting this role and saying that this, in fact, is its role, that it is part of the escalation to final solution of industrial disputes rather than the court of final appeal.

When we look at the man-days lost over the past few years, we see that one of the main factors in the loss, the main element, is the length of disputes. This is what distinguishes disputes in this country from disputes in other countries—the length of the disputes. The Minister makes reference to the provision in his Department for an examination of certain disputes. I hope he will select one, perhaps, in a State concern and another, perhaps, in a large private concern and take disputes that have lasted quite a long time and try to come to some conclusion as to why this happens because I do not know of any other country that has disputes that have lasted over such a length of time as disputes that have occurred in this country. It is not the number of individual disputes but the length and duration of the particular disputes that have distinguished this country.

I do not know the reason for this but we should be able to get some valuable information from this new Department on why these disputes last so long. Which party is the most obdurate? Naturally I am inclined to be prejudiced on this subject, but I would say that the majority of the people who are on strike, the people whom I would represent, are, if not on the breadline, extremely hard up during the duration of a strike. Working people today have many more financial commitments than they had ten or 15 years ago. This may be heresy to the people on the other side of the House but they have hire purchase commitments: they may be running cars.

Mr. Booth

Why heresy?

Mr. M. O'Leary

We know Deputy Booth's outlook on this matter. We have heard him on it before.

Mr. Donegan

They might even buy some of his cars.

Mr. M. O'Leary

His type of car would be out of the reach of the ordinary worker. From the very start of an industrial dispute, these people are very hard up. They have to meet their commitments and they are under all the embarrassments of hire purchase commitments and not being able to pay their instalments so that a great many of them are suffering hardship immediately a strike commences. Many people have hysterical ideas of young Red Guards from England coming over here and starting disputes, of a small number of people affecting the issue. No matter what the press may say, in my limited experience, any time there is any question of a strike taking place, there is no shortage of members of a union going to the meeting because they know what a strike will mean to their standard of living.

Decisions leading up to the taking of strike action are talked out in more agonising detail than any other matter of trade union policy. In most cases —I know there are exceptions—it is only after the greatest amount of heartsearching on the part of all concerned that a decision is taken that will lead to conflict between employer and worker. In a strike the worker has everything to lose and extremely little to gain.

In this situation we should bear in mind that there are never any trivial reasons for strike action. This is another fantasy that many people appear to have and the Minister and his Department seem to have acquired it. The Minister appears to take the view that we have passed to a society where all power is in the hands of the trade unions but I can assure him that the balance in our society has not changed in the slightest.

There is a more civilised procedure for the settlement of disputes but the management still has the prerogative of hiring and firing, and nothing a trade union can do can limit that power. Power rests exclusively in the hands of those who hire and fire and anyone who examines the position impartially will see that if it were not for the trade unions, there would be a gross disequilibrium between employer and worker. The trade unions have merely redressed this balance to some degree but power lies where it always lay, with the management.

I hope the Minister will be aware of this danger for his Department and that in dealing with the parties concerned, he will now adopt a neutral position and regard himself as the keeper of the community's conscience, that he will not allow himself to be led into the situation of going ahead with legislation that has not behind it the agreement of the people involved. Legislation will be pointless unless it has the agreement of those concerned with it. The Minister cannot ensure that people will go to work at a certain time and he will be undermining the work of his Department if he departs from neutrality as between employer and worker.

We are not asking his Department to settle the age-old conflict between worker and employer but we are asking him to improve the arrangements for negotiations between the parties. I do not believe we will ever reach a point where we can cut out conflicts, but, provided the organisational structure is improved, we can cut out ridiculous disputes between employer and worker, disputes that could be avoided if there were a proper organisation on either side.

I hope the Minister will go back to the interminable talks of which he speaks, that he appreciates that nobody in this country is asking his Department to settle the conflict between employer and worker. What we are asking him to do is to improve the means of negotiation between them. We ask him to go into his Department and lay the foundations for a gradual improvement in these areas. We hope he realises that the brave new world he is trying to usher in will succeed only if his other colleagues succeed in providing more jobs. If we do not get more jobs, we cannot expect the growth of good relations between employer and worker.

I have already said that the great difference in industrial relations as between this country and Western Europe resides in the fact that in Western Europe they know what it is to have nearly full employment and we have never known what that means. We have not been able to get the kinds of agreements from trade unions that unions in the circumstances of full employment can give. The disposition of unions in our circumstances is to realise that there are not enough jobs for everyone and their attitude is: "What we have we hold". All the work of the Minister and his Department will be brought to nought unless this economy improves. Unless employment opportunities as there, we will not see these kinds of improvements, an employment policy, and placement services, taking effect. No matter how many psychologists or psychiatrists may be employed in the Department, all of them will be twiddling their thumbs unless the employment position can improve.

There is a very old-fashioned test which the previous Taoiseach applied to the effectiveness of Government economic policy—it may be old-fashioned but I certainly hold with it—that the effectiveness of the Government's policy must reside exclusively in the number of new jobs it produces each year. By that standard at the moment this Government have failed very badly indeed. We produced last year only a couple of hundred new jobs. I do not know what we will produce this year, but if this trend continues, we really are asking too much in seeking a change in industrial relations.

Mr. Moore

I suppose that there is one element in the Minister's Estimate which we are all obsessed with, that is, strikes and how to stop or prevent them. I am afraid that very often we are inclined to overlook an important aspect, a very essential human aspect, and that is factory inspection and safety measures. It may well be that many a strike is caused in industry because of the conditions in which the workers work. If a man is working in bad conditions, he has that incentive not to change his conditions but at least to give himself some relief from the boredom in the factory or workshop, and a lightning strike, while it may not solve anything, will at least protest against his surroundings and relieve his feelings.

The Minister is to be complimented, therefore, on his action in stepping up factory inspections with a view to improving the conditions in which people have to work. This will pay off in that we will have less industrial unrest. On this matter of safety conditions which are so very essential in manufacturing industries, from my own experience of workers and employers, their attitude very often to safety committees is one of: "Why bother?" They simply accept men being killed or maimed in much the same way as we accept 300 people being killed each year on our roads. We deplore that it happens but we do very little about it. Perhaps it is evidence of a growing sense of responsibility among workers and employers that the number of safety committees is growing, but it will have to grow at a tremendous rate before we reach a comparison with the United Kingdom or Continental countries in this respect.

The Minister is to be complimented on tackling these very important matters as well as the more important one of complete industrial relations. The Minister has also promised legislation to cover redundancy payments. I only hope that these will come near enough to meet the case. When I last spoke on the Labour Estimate here, I mentioned the fact that redundancy was showing its heart in the Dublin port area. Because of that, I tried very hard indeed to attract industry into the port area to absorb those people who will become redundant. It is evidence of the attitude that permeates a lot of our society today, with the "I'm all right, Jack" mentality, that very often my efforts were strongly opposed by sections of the community. This morning we read in the papers of a new outbreak, if I may use that word, of redundancy in the docks. Some workers, because of improved methods of transport, may in fact lose their jobs, and I think the Department of Labour and the Department of Industry and Commerce will have to get down to the task of providing many more new jobs, apart from redundancy payments. If a man is redundant at 50 or 55 years of age, he will be thrown on the scrapheap, though he wants to be given the right to work, and how are we to create a number of new jobs in the country? It is becoming a vicious circle.

Deputy O'Leary slated the Government for not providing enough opportunities of employment which would ease industrial unrest, but there are no easy ways to attract investors to our country. As I said before, I do not believe that there are two sides to industry. There is just one side, and until we recognise that the interests of the worker and of the employer are one and that if industry does not pay both will suffer, our progress will be slow.

On the point of unrest, we often find that when a strike takes place, there is a great desire by people to have the strike ended quickly. I have often wondered whether this is the wisest move. I have seen quick settlements being referred to as putting a picture on the wall to cover a crack. If you go on doing this, what it means is that suddenly the wall falls completely and you will have to start building it again. Before the wall falls we should move.

I have every confidence in the Minister because I sincerely believe that he will do a very good job and that the Department of Labour, too, will do good work to secure co-operation between trade unionists and employers. The Minister will be accused of being an employer's man or a trade union man, whichever side people are on. This will go for anybody. If Solomon came back now and with all his wisdom would join the Fianna Fáil Party and were to be so foolish as to accept the Ministry of Labour, he would be accused of being pro-trade union or pro-employer. The Minister can take heart from this, and despite what Deputy O'Leary says about the Department being another branch of the FUE, he knows that it is not. From what I know of it from private conversations with trade unionists, they have every confidence in the Minister. I cannot say the same about the employers because I do not mix much with employers. I have every confidence that the Minister will do a great job if we give him backing and support.

The Minister also mentioned vocational guidance. I have a suggestion to make about this. I saw in Copenhagen some time ago that in one year in the City Hall all the vocational bodies came in and had an exhibition at which young people were told about the various professions. If a young person wanted to become a doctor, a teacher, a nurse, a carpenter, or whatever it might be, he was able to talk to people who were experts in that line. Of course they have full employment and we have not, but, at the same time, we could perhaps save a lot of round pegs from going into square holes by a greater emphasis on vocational guidance.

Again, much of our industrial unrest could be traced to the fact that we never have had full employment. As the Minister for Industry and Commerce said the other day, we have never had the problems that full employment causes, but I hope that we will have them at least for a while. Indeed the fact that men cannot choose what they want is also a contributing factor in further industrial unrest. We must leave it to the Minister and his Department, who are more expert, to create all the new jobs we want until we can see all parents rearing families whose boys and girls find employment in this country when they grow up. The duty does not fall on the Minister alone. It falls on the trade unions and employers and on each one of us to try to create a society in which employment expands and in which we can see full employment. This is not impossible.

Deputy Donegan mentioned the example set by Aer Lingus, and there are others trying to do this. Deputy O'Leary mentioned Roadstone, and this is going on in the building trade also, seeking a comprehensive agreement. When these firms can get together, both trade unions and employers, and hammer out an agreement for three years from which each side benefits, there is an onus on every firm and group of workers to see what they can do.

It is easy to point out what creates strikes but I believe that many recent strikes were caused to a great extent by the fact that, in the past 15 or 20 years, white-collared workers surged ahead while the manual workers were left behind and found that clerks had gone ahead to £1,000 or £1,500 a year. These workers are just as important as clerical workers. In regard to the ESB strike, one can sympathise with the point of view of those workers that they had as much right to an increase as the clerical workers in the ESB.

Apart from the necessity for the readjustment of wages in the manual trades generally, there is also the problem of the lower-paid workers, of whom we have many thousands. Could the State not pay greater children's allowances to men in certain wage categories? I know this is not the Minister's concern, but there is no sense in paying children's allowances to a millionaire living in the country and not paying a higher children's allowance to men whose wages are low. I am not saying the State alone should do this, but industry generally could share the burden. Fitters, electricians and other workers in well-organised trades can bring pressure to get what they want, but the semi-skilled worker or labourer cannot do this and his wages are depressed all the time.

In regard to the ESB strike last year, I sincerely share the Minister's hope that the Act in question will be removed from the Statute Book. I voted for the Act here, not without some misgivings. I looked upon it as one looks upon the prospect of undergoing a serious operation: one does not welcome it but regards it as necessary. I hope that within the present year, as a result of assurances given by the various people concerned, this Act will go. We must realise that we have not got two countries here one for employers and the other for workers, but that we have a poor country for which we must all work hard.

The Minister mentioned also the fact that legislation is being brought in to bring our social welfare standards up to those of the EEC countries. It is my belief that when we go into the EEC, we shall have to face many challenges and that there are many concerns here that are not geared to face the kind of competition that will arise. However, there is one firm in the constituency I represent which is very go-ahead; it has the best labour relations of the whole country. I do not think they have ever had a strike. I fear that many other firms will not stand up even to competition from the United Kingdom, and, in many cases, British industry is not of such a high standard. Some British manufacturers are worse than some of our own. Some time ago I had cause to ring an English firm. I could not get the information I sought and I said I would ring back at four o'clock. They said: "You need not bother; we will be gone home". That is the situation there. They will not work after 4 o'clock. Unfortunately we are imitating these people, but, when we enter the EEC, the competition will be so fierce that the redundancy we have at the moment will be nothing to what it will be if we do not gear ourselves for this competition.

A great deal can be done if we face our problems intelligently, as the Belgians, the Dutch and the Danish people have done. It is not so much a question of hard work as working more intelligently. I spoke to an agricultural student who had been to Denmark last year. I asked him: "Do they work any harder than we do?" He said: "No, they do not have to; they work with their heads." What they did 30 years ago is what we are trying to do now. We have all that leeway to make up.

Mr. Donegan

Denmark is not in the EEC.

Mr. Moore

No, but it is trying to get in, and I am sure, when Denmark goes in, it will face the challenge much better than we shall. I should like to appeal to the trade unions and employers to realise that in the society in which we live, which is a poor society, the concern of one is the concern of all. If we adopt that saying which was coined by Deputy Larkin's father, I think we shall have a much better society.

Mr. Larkin

This Estimate before the House is very interesting, because from reading the Minister's speech very quickly, I think he is still mesmerised by the idea that if somebody does not do this, that and the other, we shall have to take steps to compel him. This is the first full year of the Minister's term of office. Surely the Minister will realise that is not the way to get any progress in this country: "If the trade unions and employers do not toe the line, I shall have to go to the Government and the Dáil for power to take certain action"?

It appears to me that the Minister, with all his expressed good intentions, is making a basic error. He still does not appear to have grasped the problem facing those representing the workers' side in industrial relations when they are discussing problems with the workers they represent. One of the basic problems they have in this regard is that while their hours, their wages and their earnings are known, and while at all stages of negotiation, whether it is at the conciliation conference, the Labour Court itself, or some other tribunal, they have the responsibility of arguing and justifying the case for improvement in the conditions and rate of wages of workers to meet the social demands of their families, in the same community, even in the same organisations, there are sections there loosely described as management, and the only thing one can find out about them is that they are management. When any trade union organisation has a claim for reduction of working hours, increased holidays, increased wages or anything else, there is in a very large percentage of such undertakings the basic feeling among workers that they are not receiving equality of treatment and are not being treated with equity. Information as to the remuneration, as to the fringe benefits, as to holidays, et cetera, of those who manage the industry or those who allegedly direct the industry is not available to the workers generally.

The salaries of a manager or an under-manager, the amount a director may take out of an industry by way of director's fees or by way of return on investment, are not of tremendous economic concern to workers who in many cases are paid wages and salaries which give them little more than just sufficient to meet their daily needs and those of their families. In circumstances when workers, whose sole livelihood is their employment, seek improvement in fringe benefits and are compelled to go through protracted and sometimes unnecessarily delayed negotiation, and when in that industry it is known to the general body of workers that a percentage of people enjoy greater fringe benefits, it can be accepted that the mood of the workers is not one that will react satisfactorily to appeals from Ministers or captains of industry.

The Minister referred to the responsibility of management: he said they should intensify their efforts to modernise undertakings and thus to expand production. Has the Minister examined carefully the record of management during the past number of years in this respect? Has he examined the record of management in endeavouring to deal with the problems faced by workers affected by modernising, adapting and re-equipping industry? It may be true that certain sections of industry have been prepared to deal with these problems in a reasonable way but many sections of management have had little regard for the effect of modernising and re-equipping on the workers in their particular industries. This can be illustrated by the fact that in hardly a single industry has an acceptable scheme of redundancy compensation been worked out.

The Minister and possibly other Ministers from time to time have indicated the general desire for increased productivity. It is a phrase always in the mouths of management representatives, day in, day out. It is, of course, their responsibility, but at the same, where they have responsibility to deal with the problems attached to increasing productivity, there is the twin problem of dealing with workers who may be affected by steps taken to increase productivity. In this aspect the situation has become most unsatisfactory from the workers' point of view.

It is fair to state that the Minister is at least making some effort to improve the industrial relations machinery but as well as these efforts he should have another look at the situation. For instance, I know of an industry employing some hundreds of workers, where, as a result of certain claims being found recently to be impossible to resolve at direct negotiation level, the matter was referred to the Labour Court, the first step in conciliation. Both sides spent some hours in the Labour Court without avail and the following week the employer concerned intimated his disappointment that no progress had been made. I have no particular brief for the employer concerned but he indicated that the situation had not progressed in any way at the conciliation conference, due to the fact that conveyed to him inside the conference was information that the representatives of the union concerned had adopted an attitude whereby no possible adjustment, no compromise, nothing less than the full extent of the claim, would be considered. The conference broke down and subsequently at a direct conference certain progress was made.

The Minister referred to the £1 a week increase negotiated in difficult circumstances. At the same time as that £1 increase was discussed at the general level, if the Minister will recollect, it was made quite clear by those speaking on behalf of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions that their concern was to endeavour to deal with the situation affecting their members on the basis of avoiding unnecessary dislocation of industry, while at the same time, trying to secure that the position of the lower-paid workers would not continue to deteriorate because of the fact that these were the workers who were affected to a greater extent by any failure on the part of the central Government to protect them against increases in prices of essential goods. The consideration of the organised workers on that occasion was not only not accepted by the employers, which is not unnatural, but was not accepted by the Minister, and the situation reached a point where the workers had no option but to resort to industrial action to seek the implementation of the increase which was at that time justified under any and every heading.

Reference was made by the Minister to disputes in the ESB, the papermaking industry, et cetera. Surely, having regard to all the facts and all the information at the time, it must be accepted by now that a contributory factor to these disputes was the failure of the employers' side to engage in proper negotiations? The dispute in the paper industry went on for nine long weeks and it continued unnecessarily because of the insistence of the employers in that industry on introducing, at a time negotiations had been opened in relation to an adjustment in wage rates, conditions of shift working which were not acceptable to the workers in the industry.

We will have to accept that in relation to certain factors, whether wage rates, working hours or fringe benefits, there are times when these will move and it would be unrealistic for anybody to suggest in this House that it will be possible to tell workers who are working weeks of 42½ hours or higher that they must restrict claims for a reduction to 40 hours, against the background of those in the building industry and in the engineering industry having been reduced. To say to workers in other industries at this stage: "You must restrict claims for a decrease in working hours" is not realistic. The time has clearly come when the attention of workers, to use an American term, blue-collar workers, will be turned to such things as holidays, pension schemes, sick pay et cetera.

Deputy Moore mentioned that certain sections of the white collar workers had moved relatively fast in recent years. I do not think that can be said with any justification. While they may have moved relatively fast when compared with blue-collar or manual workers in recent years, I do not think they have achieved anything remarkable because by extended organisation in this field, white collar workers today in this country are starting to be treated on a different basis as compared with 30 years ago. It is true by and large that in the larger industrial commercial concerns, they enjoy shorter working hours, in many cases longer holidays, sick pay schemes, as compared with the manual workers. This situation of course has been looked at, will be looked at and will be remedied. The time has passed when one can think that a manual worker is a person who should be shut off from the facilities and opportunities enjoyed by other sections of the community. This applies more particularly to the manual workers in our chief industries. The State, itself, the Department of Lands, the Forestry Division and so on, continues to contribute to the view that these workers who contribute so much to the community should be treated with less regard than many other sections of workers in the same community.

It is not necessary that this House should dwell at any great length on the question of industrial relations. In some industries, the industrial relations procedures work out reasonably well. Some industries have experienced, over a period, a situation in which there were no disputes, due to some extent to the fact that it was possible to work out acceptable and reasonable industrial relations. Others, including other forms of economic and commercial activity in this country—including certain State enterprises—have not had that happy experience. CIE has been a serious offender in this regard. There is no doubt whatsoever that there is not a single trade union operating satisfactorily in CIE, and the trade union movement as a whole has gone on record time and again about the unsatisfactory nature of the industrial relations in that body.

The Estimate for this Department deals also with the establishment of industrial training and manpower policy. Increasingly, the question has been posed by workers at this point in time, threatened with redundancy, as to what they will be trained for, what opportunities are available to them, in their own town, for employment, if the industry in which they are engaged is affected as a result of the Free Trade Area Agreement, or as a result of the decision of the Government under the Free Trade Area Agreement, or of their policy of entering, if they can get in, the EEC. There are thousands of workers threatened with loss of employment at this time. The Minister's intentions are, no doubt, good but intentions are not enough—just as the intentions expressed in 1965 regarding prices were good intentions. This Minister has a responsibility and I would suggest, with all due respect, that he will not succeed in discharging his responsibility, or in getting the co-operation of the workers, if, when setting out the problems to be faced by the community, he suggests that in certain circumstances it would be his intention to use legal force.

We welcome the change indicated by the Minister—the change in approach in regard to the employment exchanges, those places most workers have always considered as degrading to them in having to go to sign there. The intention has already been announced, and has been referred to by the Minister, to think more in terms of those employment exchanges as an employment service. This is very welcome and will be supported.

I note that the Minister indicates he has proposals for redundancy compensation under consideration, and the drafting of the Bill is well advanced. In relation to that matter, I would suggest that action should be taken on the needs of workers who may become redundant as a prime factor in the consideration because if, in any industry, it is shown that, because of re-equipment, of adaptation procedures, economic factors, a percentage of the workers employed will become redundant, it is important primarily, before any consideration be given by workers likely to be affected—on the basis that they are prepared to co-operate—that they will not be just cast adrift and exposed to continuing economic hardship.

I would join with the Minister in expressing disappointment at the small number of safety committees established under section 73 of the Factories Act. To some extent, however, this may be due not alone to the human factor, which applies to all of us when we meet with danger— whether it is crossing the road, carrying out an operation in a job, or taking any risk whatsoever and required to face this risk fairly consistently—but to the development of a form of mental immunity. We begin to think that the accident will not affect us. We cross the road: the car coming towards us will slow down in time. We are driving a car on a wet road: the car will not skid. The machine we are operating will not slip and nothing will happen. We begin to believe that we have some personal immunity. To some extent, persons working in hazardous occupations, working in places where they are exposed to risk, are inclined to develop this same feeling. A very large contributing factor to the small number of safety committees established in industries has been the attitude of the person involved.

It is fair and proper to give credit where it is due to those industries where the employers have taken steps to give full recognition and to give full encouragement to safety committees and to safety delegates but many of them have given only half-hearted recognition. Many of them, particularly in the early stages, confine their recognition of safety committees to suggesting that the safety committee might be the same kind, possibly, as a welfare committee which already exists. It is correct to say, too, that the visit of a factory inspector has been kept from the safety delegate in the factory or industry concerned. There have been numbers of cases where a factory inspector has visited the factory, even consequent on a complaint being lodged with the Department concerned, and yet the workers in the factory have become aware of the visit only by seeing a stranger in the factory being shown around by the employer or by a manager. The inspector might possibly be there an hour or so and the safety delegate would not have been contacted by anybody.

It is correct to say that the factory inspector is not obliged to send for a safety delegate but, quite clearly, if the employers give full co-operation in regard to the essential necessity of increasing safety conditions for workers in the factory, the full co-operation should also include the encouragement of safety committees and safety delegates. I hope the Minister will make sure that with the enlarged inspectorate, no inspector will go from his Department to inspect a factory or other premises under the various Acts, particularly in regard to the safety or welfare conditions required in the factory, without ensuring that the inspector is told that he must not leave the factory without contacting the safety delegate and seeing that those matters are properly investigated.

This is the first full year's Estimate for the Department of Labour and it is noted that the Minister still has many problems facing him. He has referred to a number of those, to his difficulty in recruiting suitable experts. The success of this Department will greatly depend on the ability of the various officers in the different sections. On previous occasions I think a tribute has been paid to the service of the conciliation officers attached to the Labour Court. This tribute has been paid to those officers by those who came in contact with them in the course of a number of prolonged and difficult negotiations. It is well deserved by the officers concerned. It is almost a tragedy that in a number of cases these officers, who have such experience and are of such good quality, have been brought into a situation, one might say, almost too late. The Minister has indicated his intention to endeavour to ease that situation. His intention to expand the services in this regard and to try to find a solution to a dispute at an earlier stage than at the point where it is clarified and where battle lines have been drawn, so to speak, where it might be possible to arrive at a solution of a dispute, is a good one. This will enable negotiations to take place and the consequent loss in man hours and in economic activity will be avoided.

The Minister referred to the large number of man hours lost in industrial disputes. Perhaps he might have a look at the loss of human beings involved in the failure of his colleagues, the various Ministers of the Cabinet, to provide adequate sick pay provisions for people employed in State Departments. Even at this point in time, the situation is that we are still only reaching the stage almost of examination. The loss of man hours, whether in industry, commerce, or in the Service, is by no means confined to the loss due to industrial disputes. Losses in efforts and in efficiency can occur very substantially due to the absence through illness of staff engaged in industry and commerce.

Because of lack of adequate sick leave facilities in very many industries, and even in State employment, an ultimate loss builds up because people remain in employment, through economic necessity, at times when they should in fact be off duty. They are not fit for work but they continue at work until they reach the stage at which they are literally compelled to go sick. As a result they are out for a much longer period than would have been the case had they been able to take the necessary sick leave at an earlier stage. This situation applies not only in private industry but in the State service also.

The Minister is concerned about the need to develop our economy and the need for continuity of industrial activity, be the industry large or small. In order to achieve these ambitions, the Minister must, first of all, recognise the realities of the situation in relation to the possible—remember, I say "possible"—applications by workers for a variation in working hours, holidays, sick pay, etc., and under no circumstances must another guide line be issued by the Labour Court similar to the guide line issued at the time of the £1 increase, a guide line which, in fact, nobody recognised except in relation to the upper limit of £1. Secondly, having regard to the fact that workers' organisations arguing claims on behalf of their members are required to present all the information they can and justify the claim on many grounds, the Minister should recommend to his colleague, the Minister for Finance, that, if the salaries, incomes, emoluments and fringe benefits of managers and directors in industry were known, that might contribute to better industrial relations all round.

A large part of the problem in many private employments today is the approach of managers; even the salaries of clerical officers are secrets that should be kept. We know that that does not happen in the case of State employment. It does not happen in cases in which trade union negotiations have succeeded in establishing salary scales. There are, however, thousands of white collar workers employed on the basis that their salaries are personal matters and they must not tell them to anybody. Simultaneously, the earnings of the skilled labourer and skilled craftsman and the technician handling complicated machinery are known to everyone.

Mr. Andrews

Could we have the salary of the trade union executive?

Mr. Larkin

I can assure the Deputy the wages of trade union officials are known to the members of the trade unions.

Mr. Andrews

I see. What about members of the public?

Mr. Larkin

I do not propose to enter into any argument on this. I was referring to management. The Minister is surely aware that the workers in many industries are very much concerned about their lack of knowledge of what their directors' fees, emoluments, fringe benefits, are. Lack of this knowledge contributes in many cases to the attitude of workers in negotiations. It may well be that some of these people in industry would not like it to be generally known what they earn by way of fees, salary, shares, etc. Remember, the earnings of the workers engaged in the industry are known; it is known what they earn per hour. If there is an incentive bonus, that is known.

I am not one of those who believe that there is a great deal in common between workers in industry and those who own the industry. At the same time, if it is hoped to maintain reasonable stability in industry and to develop industry, there is need for obtaining the co-operation of the workers and that need will not be met by keeping information from them. It may well be that in many cases management is drawing a very modest salary. Management may not be in receipt of any tremendous fringe benefits but, when we are dealing, on the one hand, with groups of workers of anything up to five or six thousand, whose wage rates may be £12 or £14 a week and who may be earning £15, £16 or £17 by way of incentive bonus, and who are endeavouring to negotiate some improvements, and are being resisted at all points, it might be of advantage if management were able to say: "We are not drawing more out of the enterprise, either by way of salaries or this other means, than we are contributing to it." Possibly that is not a matter for the Minister for Labour, as it would come within the income tax code, but nevertheless it might contribute to improved industrial relations if such information were available.

At the end of the Minister's speech, he says that he is considering using methods of compulsion in certain circumstances and I suggest with all due respect that such a reference will not contribute to greater co-operation or greater understanding of the problems that face us as a community. The stress should be laid on ways of endeavouring to deal with the difficulties with as little dislocation as possible.

Reference was also made by the Minister to adaptation councils and I am sure he is aware that, with one or two exceptions, these have proved to be the greatest joke of the century. Such councils were supposed to discuss problems facing industry and to decide what collective action could be taken to ease a particular problem. Subsequently the council members were to meet with the trade union advisory bodies. The first thing learned by the trade union advisory bodies was that not only could they not get information from the employers' side but that the employers themselves were not prepared, for one reason or another, to confide in one another. Therefore, as I said, with one or two exceptions, adaptation councils have proved to be a joke as far as getting any understanding in regard to necessary action is concerned.

The need for productivity has also been mentioned and here it is necessary for management to get the co-operation of workers. In this regard workers should know, if there is going to be redundancy, what will be the position of those who will be affected. The managements in a number of industries have got such co-operation. They have got it through guarantees against redundancy, ensuring the protection of workers' earnings, and through the introduction of special pension provisions to encourage workers who had reached a certain age and who could not be guaranteed employment to think in terms of retiring. Redundancy compensation in a satisfactory way has not yet been introduced and the Minister has indicated that it was not possible to reach agreement between the trade union side and the employers' side on what would be a reasonable measure of compensation.

In view of the statement made by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions after their annual delegates meeting last year or the year before, nobody could suggest that what was being sought was unreasonable. The security sought for workers generally could not be considered to be in any way unreasonable having regard to the contribution which they have made to every successful industry. We hope that the projects referred to by the Minister, the employment services, the training services, the provision to deal with manpower problems, will all be dealt with as expeditiously as possible.

I do not know whether at this point of time the Minister has the means available to him to implement proposals for retraining. Certainly the first question asked by workers who face retraining is: "What are we being retrained for? Is it to take up employment in industries already established, or to take up employment in industries which are short of labour, or will this retraining programme be on the basis that we will be retrained but there will be no job opportunities open to us?" The extent to which job opportunities will be available or not available will depend on the co-operation not only of workers who require to be retrained but of the organisations representing such workers. This will be a responsibility of the Minister for Labour and of the Government. They will require to bring about a reversal of the trend which has continued to operate in this country, that is, a reversal of the trend reflected in there being fewer jobs available with each successive year.

This Minister for Labour is entitled to some sympathy from the House because of the task that has been placed on his shoulders. Year by year, the number of persons at work has declined. Occasionally there has been some degree of stability for industrial workers. When we are discussing the number of persons at work, regard must be had to the number of workers leaving the land.

The test of this Minister is not merely his willingness or ability to introduce training schemes or to provide employment services but also his ability to provide what Fianna Fáil have promised down through the years, employment for Irish workers in Ireland, not in Britain, France, Germany or anywhere else. It is not unfair to say that, taking this basic problem alone, Fianna Fáil have proved themselves to be dismal failures. On their estimation that this country may be in the European Economic Community in 1970, 1971, 1973 or 1975, if the Fianna Fáil record continues on the same lines as in the past, this nation will become a place in which cattle are grazed and which tourists come to visit. For the rest, we will be in a very parlous state indeed.

The former Taoiseach made frequent exhortations. The Fianna Fáil Party have had the responsibility of government for a long time. They knew the problems and had the power to deal with them. They have shown a strange reluctance to deal with the problems in a dynamic way — an expression which they have used so often. There may have been some dynamism in them but certainly it has not been displayed in the matter of providing employment for Irish workers in Ireland.

Mr. Andrews

Deputy Larking suggested that if the Fianna Fáil Government continue in the manner of their past record, Ireland will become a place to graze cattle and for tourists. That is an absurd suggestion. In order to ensure that such a situation does not arise, we in the Fianna Fáil Party in the last number of months have engaged in a political experiment which should be noted by other political Parties and by the general public. We have set up a committee whose sole function it is to look after, to attend to and to comment upon matters relating solely to labour problems, including management and unions. The chairman of this committee is my colleague, Deputy Dowling, a trade unionist of some note and some worth. The secretary is Deputy Pearse Wyse of Cork, another trade unionist who also has the qualities I have attributed to Deputy Dowling.

It is interesting to note that the chairman and secretary of this committee are trade unionists. The Fianna Fáil Party was set up on the basis of looking after the weaker sections of our community, the underprivileged, and was a Party of the workers. Certainly, in the past 30 years the country has developed and is now made up of management and unions, employers and employees. This is as it should be. Yet, we in the Fianna Fáil Party have never got away from this ideal or from the fact that we were set up on this basis. I should like to make it clear to the House that one of our primary interests is the welfare of the trade unions and of the trade unionists—the workers.

Deputy Larkin referred to industrial relations. Industrial relations at the moment are not as bad as they have been over the past number of years. That situation has been brought about by the fact that over the past number of years people have been coming out with various solutions and have run out of solutions and the Government, in their own quiet way and in conjunction with the trade unionists, are bringing about a solution of our industrial relations problems.

I should like at this stage to pay a tribute to Roadstone and to Aer Lingus for their first-class agreement with the trade unions. They have formulated contracts which will give security to their employees for a limited number of years and when the term of those contracts is over, they will renegotiate. As a result there will be continuity of security. That is what the worker wants—the knowledge that his job will be secure for his working life. This is of prime importance. All negotiated contracts and agreements must be formulated on the basis of security for the worker and his family. We do not have to discuss here the effect of strikes, but in the main, it is the worker, his family and children who are hit. This is the invidious position in which the worker finds himself when a strike comes about. We on this side of the House have always supported the principle of the right to strike but this should only be brought about in the final analysis, when all channels of negotiation have been exhausted. We have always defended the right of the worker to withdraw his labour and that is a right we will continue to protect.

CIE has been mentioned here at some length. It is a great whipping post for many people and, undoubtedly, there are many defects in Córas Iompair Éireann. For obvious reasons, I did not want to take the opportunity of discussing Córas Iompair Éireann one way or another but now I feel I can do so. Here again the real problem is the multiplicity of unions. The idea that in one firm there should be 30 or 35 unions is anathema. The concept is wrong. The Minister has mentioned that we must rationalise to go into the Common Market. I will deal with that aspect of the Common Market later and with the protection given to the workers under the Treaty of Rome, Articles 48 to 51.

Generally the problem in Córas Iompair Éireann is the number of unions and the size of the firm. People in big firms are inclined to lose contact with the lower income groups. This factor should be looked into and corrected, if possible. Many workers feel that they are treated merely as digits in big concerns. If there were more security, more recognition such as bonus incentives and scholarship schemes, it would tend to give the workers more peace of mind. Primarily what the lower income groups want is security of jobs. They are human beings and are entitled to be treated as such. They must get the feeling that what they are doing is worth while.

The Minister mentioned the question of employment exchanges. On another Estimate the question of social welfare centres was brought up and they were described in frightening terms. Some of these centres are indescribable. It is not fair to have our people going in, cap in hand, feeling that they are getting something in the way of charity. They are entitled to these benefits as citizens of this nation. Is it the worker's fault that he is out of a job? Must he queue up in a line looking for a job? The answer to this problem is the provision of cubicles where the worker or job-seeker can be treated with dignity, where he must be treated with dignity, and where he can discuss his problems in private with the placement officer. These are matters which must be taken up with our employment exchanges.

Another matter which I have mentioned on many occasions in this House is the question of information on the various aspects of Government Departments. I have in my pocket a leaflet which is alleged to mean something. It is by a Government Department and is couched in the most extraordinary terms. The reason I produce this is that I see the Minister has taken steps to ensure that information in leaflet form will be forthcoming on various aspects. This document is headed: "Inland Printed Paper Rate" and reads as follows:

Blank forms, forms not filled up but intended to be filled up subsequently, such as membership cards, order forms, character forms, voting papers, questionnaires, or forms of application for shares are inadmissible with the exception that not more than three forms of a kind, or not more than three of each kind of dissimilar ones, may be included in a packet with the covering document which is in itself admissible, whether the blank forms are part of the covering document or separate from it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Could the Deputy give any reference?

Mr. Andrews

It is M.P. 386, and is headed "Inland Printed Paper Rate." It comes from the Department of Posts and Telegraphs and is allegedly a document giving information to the public. I would ask the Minister to ensure that a document of this kind does not issue from his Department. It is meaningless to people seeking information. I welcome the Minister's statement that he is going to issue these pamphlets outlining the position in respect of the various activities of his Department, but let them be couched in language with some degree of clarity and not in terms such as I have quoted, which are sheer mumbo-jumbo.

The Minister states that the forthcoming White Paper on the EEC will cover the labour and social provisions of the Treaty of Rome and the decisions taken on these matters by the authorities of the Community. At this stage, it can fairly be said that if we entered into the Common Market tomorrow, our industrial scene, as far as management and employee are concerned, would show us in a very sorry state. It is interesting to note the clauses of the Treaty of Rome which make provision for the inter-communication of workers from State to State. Article 48 of the Treaty deals with the free movement of workers, and the first part of this Article states that this shall be ensured not later than the date of expiration of the transitional period. Part 2 of Article 48 says that this will involve the abolition of any discrimination based on nationality between workers of the member States as regards employment, remuneration, and other working conditions. Part 3 of Article 48 deals with the right, subject to limitations justified by reasons of public order, public safety and public health, of workers to accept offers of employment actually made, et cetera.

Article 49 deals very briefly with the economic and social committees and the consultation thereon, and Article 50, to my mind, is a particularly important one. This Article, made up of 13 words, says: "Member States shall, under a common programme, encourage the exchange of young workers." This is important as a statement of social policy of a high order. We in this country must look to Article 50 for the future of our own labour force. If we have these marvellous schemes set out in the Minister's brief implemented, we will have no problems in the Common Market, because one of our great advantages in the Common Market will be the surplus of labour in this country. We will have a lot to offer in this respect.

Article 51 of the Treaty of Rome, again on the question of workers, deals with the Council, which must on a unanimous vote, on a proposal of the Commission in the field of social security, adopt the measures necessary to effect free movement of workers, in particular by introducing a system which permits assurances to be given to migrant workers and their beneficiaries. This again is a marvellous concept in social justice and social security. I believe that if we had applied many of these things earlier in this country, we would not be going through the difficult times we are going through in the industrial relations field at the present.

One of the problems we have today is the narrower concept within the trade unions that their only function is to ensure wage increases. This is one of their fundamental functions but it is not, and should not be, their only function. A trade union has more to offer its members than the idea that it is there to secure higher wages for them. It has a very important part to play in this country, and this narrow concept about wage increases is wrong. I believe that trade unions should encourage the setting-up of scholarship schemes for their members. They should have people employed fulltime as inspectors, going around the homes of their sick workers to ensure that during their illness they are being properly protected and attended to by the trade unions and by the State. This would be supplementary to whatever inspectorate the State would have, and it would help. A scholarship scheme is important, because if we have educated trade unionists we will have a better Ireland to live in for the future.

These are just some suggestions and ideas that occur to me at this time. I am very glad to have had an opportunity of making a contribution on this Estimate. It is true to say that the Fianna Fáil Party have in the Minister for Labour shown their willingness at all times to meet a problem in the industrial field and in all other fields relating to industry, and to face it head on. We are the only Party in the past years who have done anything to bring about a settled industrial picture. Finally, I would like to take the opportunity of congratulating the Minister for Labour on producing this charter. We should remember that it is only the beginning, the basis on which the future legislation and programmes in relation to management of employers and management of unions will be carried out. It gives me personally great hope as a beginning, and it should be recognised as such.

Mr. Jones

At the outset, I would like to apologise for not having been here to hear the Minister. I was engaged on the business of the House otherwise at the time. I notice from the Minister's brief that he traversed more or less the ground which was travelled on the previous occasion and added in the bits which arose from the discussions that have been taking place to which he referred. I am sorry to see from the brief that the results of these discussions do not seem to have been as fully fruitful as the Minister would wish. I expressed here on the last occasion the view that in industrial relations at present, the most important thing is to try to get the largest field of agreement as between employer, on one side, and employee, on the other. The Minister, I know, is of the same mind on this matter. For that reason, I regret that, looking quickly through this brief, I find that he thinks it may be necessary for him to face other procedures with regard to getting legislation through the House on aspects of administration so far as this Department is concerned.

In regard to these training and retraining schemes, redundancy payments, resettlement and so on, which form such a large part of the work which will fall to be dealt with by this Ministry, the Minister was speaking in the Seanad in the past day or so on the Industrial Training Bill. One thing which I am sure the Minister will appreciate is that the country areas—and I am thinking of the smaller towns of the countryside which contain a sizeable number of people who are registered at the labour exchange and seeking employment, quite a number of whom nowadays come from the stratum of people who are being displaced from the agricultural sector of the community— are going to be an increasing problem if present trends continue, with a large number of our people getting away from the land, people who traditionally worked on the land, and seeking employment elsewhere. At this stage I am not aware—I am sure the Minister has it in mind—what he intends to do in regard to the training of such people who are to be found on the unemployment register in the rural areas.

Speaking for my own constituency which is a typical rural community, we have a comparatively large body of people who are unemployed. There is a large number of people on small holdings who were held to be qualified to obtain State assistance which became payable to them under a recent regulation of the Department of Social Welfare. In many cases these people find themselves, at short notice, being referred to work which is available and which they are not able to take on. They are then being penalised on both sides. What I want to draw the Minister's attention to in relation to these rural areas is the special problem involved here. Where there is a tradition of industrial employment, the retraining of such employees will not affect the schemes in the same way as the retraining of people who have never had recourse to industrial training.

Can the Minister exert any influence on the agencies concerned with the location of industries? It seems a remarkable thing to me that in certain centres, towns, industries have sprung up and that there are others which never seem to get an industry. This has sometimes puzzled me. Various explanations will be given for it, for example, that the industrialist wishes to go to a particular spot. Why he should wish to go to town A which is the county town rather than to town B which is another county town I do not know, but it is not a question, I am told, at this stage of some capital being made available.

There are a large number of county towns with a hard core of people who are seeking work and cannot find it. If we are to have more people displaced from agriculture, either because of mechanisation or because of changed circumstances, such as our entry into the EEC, this is going to be an increasing problem. I wonder at this stage of the Department's planning for the future what steps they are taking or if they intend to take any steps to deal with this problem. Employment, redundancy and retraining will be a problem for the larger centres of population, but it will be a more pressing problem in smaller areas. Take a local exchange in the country where you may find 600, 800 or 900 people on the register. In planning for increased industrialisation and increased opportunity for people to retrain, and in speaking of redundancy payments, surely there must be some place for these people? Everybody can understand that the person who becomes displaced from a job because of competitiveness which may occur in the future is entitled to redundancy payment, but I am putting the case for these rural people who are forming an increasingly hard core at our employment exchanges.

In the training of younger people, An Chomhairle Traenála will be taking over the functions of the Apprenticeship Board. I take it that the training on which we are going to embark will be geared to the conditions in the years ahead when, according to the Minister's statement and as everybody knows, we shall be facing increased competition, whether it be competitiveness in regard to design or in regard to cost. These two aspects of the situation must surely be largely in mind in regard to the retraining of employees of existing industries or the training of younger people leaving the schools and coming on to the labour market from now on.

The Minister speaks of seeking the co-operation of other Government services. I am sure the Minister will also have a liaison with the Department of Education in this matter. Having previously been Minister for Education, he is quite familiar with the type of problem which is facing with the parents of potential young employees, particularly when we are contemplating the raising of the school-leaving age. I should like the Minister to tell us what plans he has for training in this connection.

In relation to the safety of employees, I am glad the Minister has seen fit to increase the number of the inspectorate. I am also glad to see the number of safety committees is increasing and that the Minister intends to encourage a further increase by making a worth-while contribution to this type of effort.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.

Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 16 Feb 1967

Committee on Finance. - Vote 39—Labour.

Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 16 Feb 1967