I move:
That Dáil Éireann deplores the failure of the Government to formulate and implement a regional policy designed to stimulate the growth of the less developed parts of the country.
I am proposing this motion to the Dáil and deploring the failure of the Government in regard to a regional policy because, as I propose to show, the Government have no regional policy. In addition the progress that was made in that area under the previous Government has been reversed, the EEC Regional Fund is, I submit, being abused by the Government and, small as it is, is not being allowed by the Government to aid the regional development which the country so urgently requires.
As far as the west is concerned any progress in industrial development or infrastructural development is due to a combination of Fianna Fáil policies and certain economic consequences flowing from those policies. I referred to this matter in the House on the 16th April, 1969 when speaking as Minister for Industry and Commerce, as reported in Volume 239, column 1614 of the Official Report of that date I said:
Promoters are now coming here with fairly large scale projects who say to us: "We want to go to the west" instead of our having to say, as we did heretofore, "There are advantages in the west" naming the additional grants and so on. There is a change here. There are a number of factors leading to it. The point is that it is happening and Deputies will see that this is so in the not-too-distant future I hope.
I wonder can anybody honestly say that any industrial or infrastructural developments in the west are due to the policies of this Government whose attitude is clearly underlined by the fact that they never have had a Minister and now even have not a Parliamentary Secretary for west of the Shannon.
The development of a regional policy in the country goes back a long way. Perhaps a convenient place at which one might start a review of this development would be with the publication of the Buchanan Report in September, 1968. The House will recall that the major recommendation of that report was that we should concentrate the bulk of our resources on two large growth centres, to wit, Cork and Limerick, on the assumption that Dublin would continue to grow and that it did not need the allocation of special resources in order to have it continued as an effective growth centre but merely such resources as would be needed to service its natural growth. Those resources are, of course, very large indeed. That, as I say, was the major and perhaps the most controversial recommendation of that report.
I would like to recall to the House that the Fianna Fáil Government issued a statement in relation to the Buchanan Report on the 19th May, 1969. With your permission, I would like to quote a few of the statements made then. Paragraph 3 of the then Government statement is as follows:
A growth-centre programme on the lines recommended by the consultants would have far-reaching implications in regard to physical expansion on development prospects in other areas; the volume of demand on investment resources, public and private; the locational pattern of such investment and future internal population movements. The Government are concerned to achieve broad-based regional expansion leading to a faster rate of industrial growth and a higher level of employment in industry and services and to keep population dislocation to the minimum consistent with these objectives. It has been decided, therefore, that the consultants growth-centres recommendations should be further considered in the context of proposals for regional developments generally.
The Government of that time then went on to indicate the steps they had decided to take in regard to regional development. The beginning of paragraph 4 reads as follows:
The Government consider that the potential of every region should be exploited to the full, including the potential of those cities and towns which can develop as growth centres. Under the Local Government (Planning and Development) Act, 1963 the council of every city, town and county is required to prepare a development plan for its area, and those plans have been made in practically every case. The Act provides for the co-ordination of the development plans and, for this purpose, the country has been divided into nine planning regions. A regional co-ordinating body has already been established in the Limerick Region, and the Government propose that co-ordination groups should now be established in all regions. The main function of these groups will be to coordinate the programmes for regional development in each region.
That paragraph then went on to specify the nine regions concerned. In paragraph 5 the statement continued:
In their drive to achieve full employment and to reduce emigration, the Government will seek to ensure, as far as possible, that new industrial and service employment opportunities will be created locally in order that population increase and people seeking alternative employment will be able to find work in convenient locations.
It is quite clear from that statement that the Fianna Fáil Government at that time rejected this concept, which was the major recommendation of the Buchanan Report, and favoured a much more widespread development, for the various reasons touched on in the quotations. I have given, but operated through effective regional planning based on nine planning regions into which the State was divided.
The wisdom of that decision might be questioned. I believe that development since and economic studies since tend to support the wisdom of that decision rather than otherwise and to cast further doubt than then existed, which was substantial at that time, on the wisdom of the major recommendation of the Buchanan Report. As I said, that statement was issued in May, 1969 but even prior to that I had already announced plans to regionalise the work of the Industrial Development Authority and in response to an interjection from a Deputy in the House I described briefly the position as we envisaged it as reported at columns 1613 and 1614 of Volume 239, 16th April, 1969 of the Official Report. The quotation is as follows:
It will mean that within the region in which Mayo will be situated there will be a local IDA office charged with the promotion and development of industry within the region. There will be an organisation involving co-operation between the local authorities concerned and any of the bodies within the region concerned with industrial development. This is aimed at decentralising to some extent the industrialisation programme, utilising local knowledge, initiative and enthusiasm and ensuring that there are people responsible, directly concerned with and having a knowledge of the local conditions within the region, as distinct from depending on the overall responsibility exercised heretofore from Dublin. I feel this can make for a considerable change in approach to each region.
In fact, we went on to implement that. I would point out that the attitude of the Government at the time recognised the vital role of local authorities in any regional policy because the provision of roads, sewers, water, housing and, indeed, general planning considerations—are vital to regional development. That role was recognised in the structure outlined and set up.
Prior to that also and as part of the then Government's development of regional policy, I, as Minister for Industry and Commerce, had initiated the small industries programme in 1967 and subsequently, after a trial period, we extended it to all areas of the country except Dublin. That programme has been very successful. Thousands of jobs have been created under it in towns and villages and rural areas throughout the country and almost all of them have been created as a result of Irish skills and Irish enterprise. But the Coalition Government recently extended the operation of that programme to Dublin so that there is now no incentive under that programme to locate in the west, certainly no particular incentive as there was before. I have personal knowledge of projects under that programme which were located in less developed parts of the country and would have been located in Dublin but for the provision that we operated in regard to that programme—that it would not operate in the Dublin area.
I suggest that the whole approach of this Government is Dublin-oriented and for political reasons, not for any reasons of economic policy or an assessment of what is in the best interest of the country. The people of Dublin will not thank this Government for that because what the Government are doing is contributing to the huge growth of Dublin with the very unpleasant living conditions that can bring about, with the appalling traffic problems it can create and with the enormous cost of land and roads involved. Other consequences are the social disruption in Dublin as has occurred and is occurring on a much bigger scale in other cities in other parts of the world because no country has yet learned how to operate effectively urban living conditions in large cities so that the quality of life will be satisfactory for most of its inhabitants.
Like other countries, we have not learned to master that problem yet— if it ever can be mastered—and the policy pursued by the Government is accentuating that problem. On the other hand in rural areas, in towns and villages throughout the country, that policy is totally disrupting the social fabric. I believe any Government worthy of the name would be concerned about that and would be trying to remedy it or at least stem the flow instead of which this Government are trying to accentuate it by such actions as extending the small industries programme to the Dublin area.
This is another example of the extremely defective judgment of this Government, the mismanagement by them which is illustrated only to clearly in their handling of the economy generally and that in this instance also we have grave mismanagement indulged in purely for what the Government regard as a short-term political gain. Members of the present Government when in Opposition were continually pressing us who were then in Government in regard to the Buchanan Report and in regard to the policy of growth centres. As I indicated briefly in the quotations I have given from the statements of the Government at that time regarding the Buchanan Report and in regard to the policies then announced, initiated and implemented, the attitude of the then Government was quite clear—that it was opposed to those recommendations of the Buchanan Report. Members of the present Government professed great concern then. I think in particular the present Minister for Finance was one of them; certainly the present Minister for Foreign Affairs was very active in this field and Deputy Barry Desmond, chief Whip of the Labour Party was another and is on record in another debate in this House as referring to himself as being blue in the face asking questions on this subject. It is interesting in the light of that—Deputy Barry Desmond going blue in the face asking these questions —to consider the position since the Government took office. It should be remembered that when in Government we made our position clear and we acted as I have outlined but what have this Government done or said about a national regional policy? There are few topics on which this Government have been short of words—there are a few but not many—and this appears to be one of them. As far as I know there has not been one word from any member of the Government on this question of growth centres and the kind of policy that should be adopted and implemented in that regard.
I do not know where the Government stand in regard to growth centres, in regard to the recommendations in that regard in the Buchanan Report. I invite the Minister for Finance to avail of the opportunity of this debate to let us know where the Government stand in that regard. It may be late in the day but better late than never. In the absence of any statement from the Government I suggest their actions speak very loudly for them. Some of their actions indicate their attitude, including the opening of the small industries programme to Dublin, as I mentioned, and the grabbing of the EEC Regional Fund for the benefit of the Exchequer. If it is the Minister's contention that that is not what is being done, perhaps he will indicate what items of ordinary expenditure on infrastructural or industrial development have been or will be increased by the amount received from the EEC Regional Fund. If that cannot be indicated, it would seem clear that the ultimate destination of any moneys received from the EEC Regional Fund is the maw of the Exchequer and not the development of a regional policy here.
It is notable that in the announcement made by the Government recently concerning projects in respect of which they are receiving repayment from the EEC Regional Fund there was little or no regard for infrastructural needs. Out of a sum of almost £6 million, £470,000, according to the Government's statement, will go to disadvantaged areas infrastructure. I have no doubt that if analysed it would be quite revealing but we must assume, in the absence of any information to the contrary, that it is going for what one would normally understand as infrastructural development in disadvantaged areas. Even if it is it is £470,000 out of almost £6 million. The actions of the Government in this and other regards speak loudly as to their attitude to regional development.
Nobody could contemplate a regional policy for this country and the application of EEC funds to aid that policy without envisaging quite substantial, and hopefully, if we could get the fund up to a proper size, massive investment in infrastructural development here. Any little thought given to this subject will show that this is not only desirable but essential if there is to be any real regional policy and regional development here. Yet, the first allocation announced by the Government shows £470,000 out of almost £6 million for infrastructural development.
That statement indicates that other money will be going for infrastructure but it is also described, correctly, as infrastructural projects directly related to industrial development. That is not the kind of infrastructure one is talking about when one is speaking of regional development. Many industries have in the past, and will in the future, require certain infrastructural development, a road, a special water supply or a sewerage scheme for that project. There is nothing related specifically to regional policy and the infrastructural development that one would envisage under regional policy involved in that.
Perhaps the most telling action of the Government in regard to alleged regional policy is the spread of these projects throughout the country. In a debate we had some months ago in regard to the EEC Regional Fund we had contributions from Deputies Barry Desmond and John Esmonde from the Government side and they made it clear that they thought the EEC fund for regional development ought to be used in or close to their respective constituencies. Deputy Esmonde was specific about a particular area in his own constituency. I cannot say that Deputy Barry Desmond advocated that the fund should be used in Dún Laoghaire but he went close to that. In all fairness to him I have a copy of a report of a debate in 1969 in which Deputy Barry Desmond argued very strongly that we should concentrate industrial development in the Dublin area, stretching from Balbriggan to Bray, and forget the rest of the country. He is being consistent in this regard. Whatever view one takes of that argument one cannot call it the implementation of a regional policy by an Irish Government. All the factors to which I adverted previously, social disruption and the economic cost, should be considered in this kind of approach.
Whether one agrees or disagrees with the views put forward, it cannot be called the implementation of a regional policy. I should like to remind the Minister that he and his party and I, and members of my party, campaigned to urge people to vote in favour of joining the EEC. The people did so, rightly in my view, but both parties in that campaign laid great stress on the possibilities inherent in the establishment of an EEC Regional Fund. I challenge the Minister, or anybody on the Government benches, to indicate any speech made at that time from their side of the House, or from this side, which would give any listener an inkling that what was involved was the expenditure of money throughout the country in small dribs and drabs mainly on such things as industrial grants or the recoupment to the Exchequer of money already spent on industrial grants. That is not what we represented a regional fund as being capable of doing for this country. We clearly indicated to the country that we would be able to utilise it for large scale developments benefiting the poorer parts of the country, especially the west but not confined to the west. That is not what has happened. I regard it as getting close to a fraud on the voters to implement the EEC Regional Fund in that way.
We had a statement from the Minister for the Gaeltacht, who I am glad to see is present, in regard to the setting up of a western development board outside of the Gaeltacht. Although it is proper for that Minister to operate outside the Gaeltacht, it was he who announced that. I would suggest that board are likely to produce the same benefits as the activities of the Minister for the Gaeltacht have produced for the Gaeltacht, that those areas will be the recipients of a very astute, well conducted, clever public relations campaign but that they will not be the recipients of any worthwhile developments or benefits.
The Minister for the Gaeltacht may remember speaking in this House in July last and claiming various projects and job creations and that Deputy Molloy, among others on this side of the House, analysed those claims and pointed out that they replaced plans announced six years previously. The Minister for the Gaeltacht undertook to reply to those points. He was asked on a few occasions if he were doing it and he said he was writing a letter to explain the matter, but he had not done so up to last weekend.
