May I first say that I share the concern expressed by the Deputies on the other side of the House and I am grateful to them for the constructive tone of the contributions they have made?
The factory in question, a factory that I know, the catchment area of which involves the constituencies of Deputy Walsh, Deputy Murphy and of myself, is in between a number of constituencies and it is a fairly large catchment area from which it takes workers.
I should like to put something about the company—its name has been given —on the record of the House. The company is Janelle. It is fair that I should say something about it. It is a public company. It is a completely Irish company, and it does seem to me that in fairness to them I should say that in my opinion they are an example of the very best sort of entrepreneurial flair that we have in Ireland, built up by Irish people, with really outstanding management and outstanding production engineering. They are among our leading exporters of clothing, of men's and women's raincoats and trousers. I should say also in fairness to them since we are discussing their affairs here that they have an outstanding track record. There is this one difficulty with one factory, but nonetheless it is fair to affirm that they have made a great contribution to the growth of employment, to the growth of exports in this sector. Exports are more than 92 per cent of production. Exports are going into the UK to mail order suppliers who, until fairly recently, until some new measures were introduced, were able to get products from all over the world including some of the low cost areas like Hong Kong and Korea. This Irish firm was able to compete against some of those suppliers on the basis of quality, on the basis of delivery terms, on the basis of price.
They now have approximately 900 employees in eight factories, five of them in Dublin, one in Cork and one in Blessington, the one that was referred to, and the Enniscorthy one. There are approximately 100 people in Blessington. The core of the difficulty —and this is something I and my Department have been in touch with— relates to trousers. The Blessington and Enniscorthy factories produce trousers. Some of the other factories produce other things, notably raincoats.
It is worth saying also that many of these factories are the result of takeovers and the bringing into health of firms that were established by others and that were never really healthy until Janelle, with very good management, came along and made them healthy. That was the situation in Blessington and also in Enniscorthy. The quality of management is very high. That is the key to the success.
They mass produced with flow methods in a very efficient way, and they had almost £5 million worth of exports in very difficult circumstances to the year end of July. The difficulty was—I am quoting from a company statement—that the planned progress in the trousers division was impeded due to the recession in the men's trade resulting in the main from low cost country imports into our export market—they are an example of these things—but since then—and I think this is important because I will be looking a little into the future the measures taken by the EEC to restrain imports of sensitive clothing products into the member States of the Community will have begun to have the effect of an easing of competition because these restrictions apply to imports from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, Macao and Singapore, which are the low cost areas.
Let us come to the crux of the matter now. One of these factories is closing down. I have good reason to believe that a permanent closure is not envisaged and—here is the real problem which faces me in the sense of decision, and I know it faces Deputies on the other side who are looking for the best solution—we have a firm which is very efficient, which has a very good track record and in very difficult times. We could twist their arm and say "keep the production in both the Enniscorthy factory and the Blessington factory". I know that what I am going to say now is hard on Blessington in the short run—one of these difficult decisions that have to be made—but I believe it is in the interests of all of the employees, 800 odd of them remaining, it is in the interests of our £5 million worth of exports, that we should allow them to operate in a very efficient way.
There will be redundancy payments, I think, for the people out of work, and there is the perspective that it is a good plant and they manage it very well. There is the perspective that the markets will turn up, as is expected now that firstly there are signs of an improvement and secondly now that the low cost competitors are excluded from the community to some extent, not totally excluded but supplies are cut down.
I have taken the position that I wanted to see the health of the whole group and therefore I did not want to coerce them into what was basically an uneconomic position and a position of urging inefficiency on them because I thought that would endanger the whole group and that was something I did not want to do. I would, however, say that I understand that the position has been fully explained to the workers and they understand it and I am informed that the position has been accepted by them. I understand that it is not possible in the short term to divert work from the rainwear side into the trousers side. It is trousers that are manufactured in Blessington. In the long term, either there is the possibility of an upturn in demand for trousers—and when I speak of the long term I am not speaking about years but months—or else of the spreading of the raincoat work, but that takes retraining and takes a little time.
In regard to the specific thing that is urged upon me, my officials are certainly available to talk to people from that factory if they so wish. I know that in that industrial estate in Blessington substitute employment is difficult at this moment, but I would point out that while the distances are real there is Naas, there is Newbridge, there is Dublin, there is Clondalkin. I know people will say there is high unemployment in this area, and that is true, but there are jobs and people have been brought in from quite large distances from some of these areas, from Clondalkin and other places.
I believe that is a very good firm with a very good future, and it is my view that this will not be a permanent closure. In regard to the point made about the county development officer I should like to say that I do not know why that was so. There is no reason why those discussions should not take place; they would be useful. If the company wants Fóir I would be happy to see them going that far. In my view the company is so strong that they could go to commercial banks or to ICC; they are a very good risk and a good firm. The question is whether it is prudent for them to do that at this time.
I know the dilemma as to whether one puts those people on the labour exchange, which costs something, or whether one encourages, urges and pushes the firm a bit to keep those people in employment, is a real one. The latter would save the State a bit of money but it takes the real sharp competitive edge off the firm and may diminish their momentum. It would possibly create difficulties at a time when competition is very intense. On the face of it, that is something I am not anxious to do because I believe the best guarantee of the future for the workers in Blessington who will be laid off is to have them re-employed.
The prospects of re-employment are good, and the best prospect of the future of the jobs of the workers in the other areas, Dublin and Enniscorthy, is that the firm should remain efficient and healthy as it is now. I was prepared, as the best guarantee of future employment, to countenance this in the short term for a period which I believe will be a finite period. I do not see that as the end of manufacturing by Janelle in Blessington; I see it as a temporary closure.
The resources of my Department, of Fóir, the ICC, the IDA and AnCO are available to help this project. I know I can commit AnCO because they are good in trying to take up the slack with training, and if there is a question of retraining, to go from trousers to raincoats, that is something I would be happy to see AnCO involved in. All the resources of my Department are available to the company. The basic cause of the difficulty was low cost import trousers from the cheap areas which has been much restricted of late with the result that the competitive position is improving. That was the crucial thing, and that caused the trouble, but I believe it will pass. I can assure the Deputies that all the State agencies in my Department and in the Departments of Finance and Labour are all available. I will leave this one thought with the Deputies. I believe that competitiveness by what I would call a lean, hardy and fit firm is the best guarantee not just of the jobs at present in the firm but of future growth. Therefore, I have taken the decision—the Deputies may think it is a hard decision —which I think was the correct one.
I am prepared, if it is the firm's best commercial judgement to countenance some loss of employment to guarantee the general health of the firm firstly, to secure the jobs of the other workers in it and, secondly, to secure a dramatic leap forward when economic circumstances improve so that they have some resources, some spare cash and a strong and fit organisation. I assure Deputies that the co-operation of my Department is available. I believe that co-operation and help should be invoked by the firm in the light of their best commercial judgement. If there is an approach by the firm, by the unions, together or separately, we will make available the entire battery of our mechanism of assistance. I assure the Deputies that we have been in continous touch since this matter first arose.
