asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce the steps he is taking to protect the jobs in a textile mill in Cork (details supplied) which are threatened with redundancy.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Cork Textile Mill.
1.
The firm to which the Deputy refers announced recently that, due to trading difficulties on the home and export markets, it has decided to go into voluntary liquidation.
I regret that despite my efforts and those of the State agencies concerned, it does not now seem possible to prevent the closure, as I am informed that the decision to cease production has been stated by the firm to be final.
Is that the end of it as far as the Department of Industry and Commerce is concerned? Has the Department, the Minister, or the Parliamentary Secretary, any regard for the people who have been employed there for decades—many of them are fourth and fifth generation workers with that firm?
I can assure the Deputy that the Department is very concerned about this matter and have been in negotiation with the company. Certain offers were made to the company through Fóir Teoranta in respect of one section of their operations in the Clonakilty area which is linked with the area which is closing. Unfortunately, the terms were not acceptable. The Department has been active, throught the IDA also, in promoting additional industrial employment in the Cork area. No doubt the Deputy is aware of this.
Is it not a fact that the operation in the Clonakilty area is intended to proceed anyway and is it not a purée for the Parliamentary Secretary to talk about making offers in respect of the operation in the Clonakilty area? What we are concerned with is the loss of employment in Cork city and the Douglas area, in particular. Has the Parliamentary Secretary, or his Minister, any plans to provide alternative employment for these people?
I can tell the Deputy that in the General Mills of Little Island, a chemical industry, there is a projected employment at full production of 110 and the date of production is the end of June. The Data "100" Corporation in Ballincollig producing computers has a projected full employment of 330 and the date of production is 1st July. Smith, Kline and French, Currabinny, in the pharmaceutical area, has a projected full employment of 120 and the date of production is 4th July. Galeo of Little Island, again in the chemical area, has a projected full employment of 20 with the date of production at mid-July. The Roco Swissco Foods. Little Island, in the packet foods area, has a projected full employment of 185 and the date of production is August. The Deputy will see from that that, taking the type of month and the month following, there are substantial new enterprises starting in the Cork area. I understand that the Manpower Service of the Department of Labour has been in touch with the union and the people involved with the present firm, to which the question refers, to see how new employment can be provided and new training, if necessary, for the people involved.
Does the Parliamentary Secretary realise that Cork city and its environment has a population of 150,000? The Parliamentary Secretary is not dealing with a little town. He is talking about employment in various parts of Cork some 20 miles apart. Some of the parts to which he refers are homogeneous and there is adequate unemployment in the areas to which he referred to absorb whatever employment he has referred to as being likely to be available. Is the Parliamentary Secretary not aware that this kind of employment, to use the Minister for Industry and Commerce's own phrase, is an ongoing process; something that he could not have stopped anyway because the facilities were there already? Some of the negotiations had already started before the Minister, or his Parliamentary Secretary, took office. Would the Parliamentary Secretary further have regard to the fact that on the ratio of population, Cork to the rest of the country, there will be approximately 5,000 secondary school-leavers seeking employment in the Cork city and county this year? Does the Parliamentary Secretary accept that the industries to which he has referred will not only fail to absorb the ordinary unemployment figures but will miserably fail to absorb those who have now been put out of employment? What prospects are there for the 5,000 school-leavers who will be looking for employment in the autumn this year? Is it not only poppycock for the Parliamentary Secretary to be talking in this fashion?
I do not accept what the Deputy has said. The situation is that the present Government have provided substantially increased resources for the Industrial Development Authority to assist in new job creation. In real terms, even taking account of inflation, in the present year there is a 40 per cent increase in the amount of money available to the IDA for capital expenditure. That is a substantial commitment of money and it is money that counts by the Government in this field. Of course, there are difficulties in the textile industry and the Deputy and the House are aware of them. This is an industry in the textile field and there are problems. However, these problems are not confined to Ireland. In fact, the relative job loss——
We live in Ireland and nowhere else.
The Deputy posed a lengthy supplementary during which I did not interrupt him and I would thank him to allow me to complete my reply. In the textile field while there has been substantial job losses here the relative rate of job losses in the textile field here has been lower than in many other EEC countries.
I should like to ask——
Deputy Desmond can come to the rescue of the Parliamentary Secretary in a few moments.
We have spent an undue length of time on this question already.
Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that it is almost ten years since I occupied the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and some of the firms he has referred to as being about to provide employment were already nibbling at the bait ten years ago? Why should the Parliamentary Secretary say that this is going to be the great nostrum or the cure for the serious unemployment situation and, worse, the disemployment situation—if the Parliamentary Secretary can understand the distinction —that has arisen in Cork in the last couple of years?
In view of the fact that the Deputy's party for most of the intervening ten years were in power it seems remarkable that they have not been booked until now.
Our people were working and there was full employment.
I am calling Deputy Barry Desmond.
It is my question and I should be allowed to ask a supplementary on it before Deputy Desmond.
I agree, but I should like to advise the House that we have spent almost ten minutes on this question already. I am moving off it shortly.
It is an important question.
There are other questions on the Order Paper equally important.
To say that we have spent almost ten minutes on this is somewhat exaggerated because we were some minutes late in starting Question Time.
I took the Chair a moment after 3 o'clock.
Which clock was the Chair going by?
The one in front of me.
The Acting Chairman took the other clock.
Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that 150 jobs will be lost in this mill in Douglas during a month in which 264 jobs will be lost in a mill in Blarney, and in a month in which 250 jobs have been lost in a fertiliser industry in that city? Is he aware that the number of people in receipt of unemployment benefit at the Cork Exchange has doubled in the period from April, 1974, to April, 1975? In view of that is he satisfied that the paltry number of jobs he has said will start in the Cork area is adequate to recompense those people or the working people of Cork for the losses they have sustained under this miserable Coalition Government?
I can tell the Deputy that the Minister met the representatives of the management and workers in this concern on 1st July. It was indicated by the company on that occasion that the problem of the company was not one of money but a problem of orders for the product they are producing. The Minister indicated at that time that if a viable proposition was put to him he would arrange for the State agencies to have it developed quickly. The Minister had done everything possible to keep this company in being but the decision to close was taken by the company, presumably to the best of their own knowledge.
If the loss of orders——
I have called Deputy Desmond.
This is my question.
Please allow the Chair to govern Question Time.
This is a question concerning Cork. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown is far removed.
I appreciate your ruling, Sir, but I am sure you realise the peculiar situation that arises when a representative of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown stands up here. If he is fighting for the workers of Douglas he is very welcome to ask a question.
Members from both sides of the House are entitled to ask supplementary questions.
I am entitled to a supplementary before Deputy Desmond is. I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary would he now agree——
Ask Denis Murphy. He could answer a few questions on that.
Did the Deputy mention somebody's name?
On a point of order. There was an implication and an imputation against an individual named by Deputy Desmond just now. I think it has been the practice here not to name individuals where there was no prospect of the particular individual refuting charges, implied or otherwise.
I have heard a name mentioned in an undertone. It is a convention of the House that names of persons should not be mentioned——
(Interruptions.)
Is it in order——
Does the Deputy persist——
I said "Ask Denis Murphy".
He named him and implied he had a lot to answer for. Does the Deputy persist in that charge against a person who has no opportunity of answering?
I make no charge. I have been trying to ask a question as to why the managing director——
Let us keep personalities out of this.
——put this firm into voluntary liquidation.
Deputy Desmond made the observation that the person named had a lot to answer for. Is that not an implied charge against an individual who is named and who has no opportunity of defending himself?
I have asked that names should not be mentioned.
I withdraw any charge. I made no charge whatever.
Could we get on with Questions? This question is now before the House for 15 minutes. This is not good enough and is unfair to the other Members of the House.
In view of the fact that here in this House last night the Minister for the Gaeltacht was promising 200 textile jobs for Gaeltacht areas, could the Parliamentary Secretary explain why this should be so while we in Cork are suffering——
A brief question, please.
Can the Minister reconcile the fact that there are no orders in the books of this firm in Cork with the promises made by his colleague last night in the Gaeltacht debate?
I regret I was not present in the House.
We were.
I am sure the Deputies were, or they would not be saying what they are saying, but I was in the Seanad. However, in response to what Deputy Fitzgerald has said, obviously the textile field is very diverse and the area in which the Minister for the Gaeltacht may be able to offer prospects of job creation in the Gaeltacht may relate to a different form of textile to those produced in the firm in Cork which has now gone into voluntary liquidation. I think that is self-evident.
Would the Parliamentary Secretary confirm that very substantial proposals were made by Fóir Teoranta to this company, and would he agree that the unilateral decision of the directors of this company to put the undertaking into voluntary liquidation is, to say the least of it. most peculiar?
I cannot say that Fóir Teoranta were in negotiation with the company concerned, but I would prefer not to go any further than that.
Would he not agree that it would have been possible to maintain the trading of this company for at least another six months, that jobs could have been held and that, in fact, the decision, of which I am fully aware from a trade union point of view——
We must move on to the next question.
I partly guessed Deputy Desmond was going to make some kind of snide remark on the management of this firm, but could I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to agree that a combination of difficulties in the textile trade coupled with the overburdening of this privately-owned firm with the wealth tax was just the last straw and crippled the prospects of this firm?
(Interruptions.)
I have no information in regard to the last part of the Deputy's supplementary and I would be very doubtful as to its veracity.