I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time.
The Bill is not extending the grants but is extending the time within which persons can apply, the time in which they can be considered.
Industrial Grants (Amendment) Bill, 1967: Second and Subsequent Stages.
We have no objection to this matter. Indeed, our view is that the Government are far too restrictive in their support for existing industry. One of the mistakes they have made in their efforts to bring about industrial development is to bend over backwards to give too much to some people from abroad with foreign-sounding names and too little support to existing industries. For instance, the adaptation grant legislation gives only 25 per cent, and during the time of credit squeeze, that left 75 per cent to be met from profits or from any other source. The "any other source" can be quite difficult.
The extension of time is what is relevant here. This means that all the prognostications of the Taoiseach, particularly in relation to our entry into the Common Market, have now been proved wrong. It is only six months since this man, hailed by some as a man of great ability, said we would be in by 1970. Other people in Europe and Britain had stopped saying that 18 months or two years previously. It is only a few weeks ago since his permanent representative at the Council of Europe and his Ambassador in Paris, when attending a meeting of the Council of Ministers, were left in the position of not being able to say whether or not we were for an interim arrangement of some nature rather than full membership because of a speech the Taoiseach made at the Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis when he intimated that perhaps this was a possibility.
Where is the Deputy getting this?
It is related to the extension of time. It relates to the fact that the Taoiseach does not know where we are going in Europe because his Minister for External Affairs is resident, as Maureen Potter says, not in the past, as some people think, but in New York. The position is that they do not know where they are going. The Ambassador in Paris and our permanent representative on the Council of Europe had to attend the meeting of Ministers and did not know what the position was. Now we are faced with the fact that the Taoiseach has to admit again by the introduction of this legislation that his ideas about when we are going into Europe are quite wrong. In fact, the extension of time here asked for is simply a headline and an explanation of how wrong he was. It is interesting to find that a few days ago he went to Downing Street and found there——
This is so much out of order, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, that I must leave.
——that what everybody had been telling him for the past three to five years was true and that, as usual, he was at fault. The great saviour who managed to become Leader of the Fianna Fáil Party, not-withstanding the efforts of the Minister for Finance, who is now leaving the House, and all his colleagues, is just another Fianna Fáil failure.
As far as we are concerned, the adaptation grants are inadequate. The fact that the length of time to finish the work is being extended is something to which we do not object. But we wish to avail of this opportunity of saying again that the encouragement and support for industry, very often more in defence of existing jobs than in the creation of new ones, is something that does not seem to attract the attention of Fianna Fáil. Perhaps it is because it does not give as much political advantage as new industries do. At the same time, it is almost certainly more important. We have no objection to the measure. It is merely a sign of what we knew for some years past.
We do not object to the time being extended, but it does lend point to the argument we have been making that many firms do not seem to be aware that adaptation grants exist at all or, if they are aware, most certainly do not seem to have been very anxious to avail of them. The Minister is aware of this and his reply to a question a few weeks ago would suggest that he knew this was happening.
It is the luckiest thing in the world that we were not in Europe before now. Most certainly we would not appear to be going in before 1970 or 1975. It is all right for the Taoiseach at Question Time to say that the Free Trade Area Agreement with Britain would only be in full operation by 1975. He used this as an argument to bolster up his case that the Free Trade Area Agreement is a good one. We were told that the Free Trade Area Agreement was for the purpose of getting us used to competition so that when—they did not say "if"—our entry into Europe came we would be ready for it. Not alone the present Taoiseach but everybody, and particularly his predecessor who was very adamant about it, was saying we would be in not later than 1970. When they made those statements, they seemed to think we would be able to meet the fierce competition Irish industry would have to face.
I have heard so many comments, incorrect comments, from Government Ministers that I would like to hear the Minister in charge of the Department of Industry and Commerce make a categorical statement on this. As things are going now, some of our industries have gone to the wall, even though the Free Trade Area Agreement will not be fully operative until 1970. At present there is one struggling for existence in Clonmel and the Minister knows the one that went to the wall in Dundalk. They are all around the place, without counting the failures in Dublin. For that reason, surely some better effort must be made to counteract this situation?
The argument has been made that despite the failure of some long-established firms, new ones are coming on which are taking up people who are being made unemployed as a result of the closures. The unemployment figures prove that that is untrue and there is no use at all in anybody on the Government benches standing up here to say that the unemployment figures were worse, that there were 95,000 unemployed back in the 1954-57 period, or portion of it. There were. The number was as high as 97,000 unemployed during that period, but there were 132,000 unemployed during a period when Fianna Fáil were in power. It does not do any good to recount those figures. The figures now are the figures which are really important and the figures now are getting out of hand. If the extension of the period here enabled firms to adapt themselves so that they would be able to take back some of the workers who are being left unemployed, as well as those who are coming on the labour market for the first time, then we would all give the fullest support to the measure before the House. We are certainly not opposing it but we feel that it has to be taken a lot more seriously, both by manufacturers and by the Government.
I welcome this measure. The Minister for Industry and Commerce is handling it the right way. We are most anxious to see that all our well-established industries should be able to survive all competitors.
In reply to Deputy Tully, the Minister has made provisions against dumping here.
That is the next Bill.
I know that, but I am just saying——
I heard Deputy Burke speak for about 25 minutes on the wrong section of the Greyhound Bill.
Like ourselves, he often backed the wrong greyhound.
I backed a lot of them in my time.
Deputy Burke has been concerned from time to time with applications for adaptation grants, assisting his constituents.
Naturally, he would have influence.
A number of my good friends, manufacturers in County Dublin, have been applying for adaptation grants and I must take this opportunity of thanking the Minister for the intelligent way he approached the applications made by these people. I shall not say any more except that I welcome the extension and I hope this extension will be responsible for giving an opportunity to our long-established manufacturers and to our new people also to compete in the international field.
With reference to another point made by Deputy Tully, every civilised nation in the world has to make agreements with a neighbouring nation as far as trade is concerned. That is as old as democratic government and anything we on this side of the House and the Government have done has been in the interests of the Irish nation. If, as a result of our experience, we find that this is responsible for unemployment among our friends, we are big enough to change our minds on greater enlightenment.
Big enough, surely.
I am glad, and indeed not at all surprised, to find that this measure is being supported from all sides of the House. This is something that really arises from the fact that due to the exhortation that was given to industrialists to apply for adaptation grants we had such results, and very welcome they were. However, the fact was that we had a sudden rush of applications in the last few weeks before the closing date and ended up with about the same number of applications on hands as we had over the previous four year period. Consequently it was not possible to process all of these within the statutory time limit. Basically this is what is involved in the Bill, to give us an opportunity to extend the time limit to deal with these outstanding applications.
I should like to comment on Deputy Tully's reference to previous statements about entry into the EEC by 1970. That statement by him was not correct in so far as he said that it had been said positively that we would be members by 1970. What was said was that we would be members eventually and I adhere to that—we will—but what was said was that 1970 was a realistic date to work to as the date by which we would be members for the purposes of our planning activities.
I cannot give the reference here but I hope to produce it later on.
I will guarantee to the Deputy he will not.
I will guarantee I will.
Obviously any calculation of matters such as this is dependent on so many factors over which no one individual and no one Government has control that such an estimate can only be an estimate. Indeed, to my mind, it makes sense that we should operate on that basis. It would be perhaps stretching things a little to suggest that this Bill will have the effect of creating new employment. It may well do so but certainly these grants that are being given under this Bill will have the effect of ensuring that existing jobs will continue which would not otherwise continue in free trade conditions if these grants were not applied for and used in the adaptation schemes of the various firms concerned.
Since Deputy Tully has raised this point, I want to make it as clear as I can—and I have already tried to do this in this House before—that the difficulties which have arisen for some firms, particularly in the footwear industry to which Deputy Tully referred, have no connection whatsoever with the Free Trade Area Agreement and that in fact the protection which now exists for the footwear industry is the same protection as existed for it over the past four or five years. This is correct. The amount of imports into this country in footwear are approximately three per cent of our requirements. The other 97 per cent is produced at home and very heavily protected. The difficulties which have arisen in that industry are fairly complex but they relate to the fact that there was a recession in Germany which affected the British manufacturers who were exporting to Germany. Of course the situation in Britain has not been all that bright and our exporters who were exporting to Britain were forced back into this country and we have a greater capacity in the industry in the country than the home market can absorb. There are other factors but this is the basic trouble. Whatever the causes may be of difficulties in the footwear industry, they have nothing whatever to do with the Free Trade Area Agreement or the reduction of duties because duties have not been reduced in that industry.
The NIEC Report forecast this would happen and it is happening dead on time. The Minister knows this.
If they forecast this— and I am not familiar with this just at the moment—on the basis of reduction of duty, they were right for the wrong reasons.
They do not have Deputy MacEntee's crystal ball either.
I am telling the Deputy what is a fact. Protection for the footwear industry has not been reduced in the past four or five years.
The question of the creation of new employment is not strictly relevant, but since it was mentioned, may I say that while none of us is satisfied with the creation of new jobs, nevertheless we must not forget that it has been established that in the five-year period 1961-1966 we created almost 12,000 new jobs each year which was a good deal better than interim figures seem to indicate? None of us is satisfied with this rate of progress but——
The slack was taken up. The number of jobs that were disappearing was greater than the number of jobs being created.
That is not so.
Of course it is so.
However, I do not think it is relevant to the Bill so I do not propose to pursue it. I do not think there was any other point raised.
Question put and agreed to.