Before the adjournment of this debate I was trying to identify the philosophy we should pursue in Europe. I was pointing out that this was an appropriate time for the Minister to analyse our satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the European experience coming as it is four years after our membership and at the end of the Government's term. Generally speaking, I find that the Minister's speech, which was delivered by the Parliamentary Secretary, lacked that broad analysis of our experience in Europe which one would have expected at this stage. More significantly, it lacked any statement or indication of how we intend to fulfil our role, discharge our obligations and exploit our opportunities in the next few years. We have a certain historical analysis but we do not have one of the type I mentioned. We do not have an outline of the kind the incoming President of the Commission, Mr. Roy Jenkins, gave to the European Parliament when he set the scene for the Parliament as to where Europe goes from here. I expected such an analysis at this stage because it is very much a landmark to this Dáil and the Government.
I regret the Minister was not here to listen to my contribution but I accept he had an important commitment. However, business could have been arranged in such a way as to ensure his presence. I said that two things could be said about the Paris Summit by way of commendation, the establishing of the regional fund and, secondly, that it limited the operation of that fund to three years. The fund eventually provided was far too inadequate and at the end of the three year period we are all in a position to review the operation of that fund. More important, we are in a position to highlight what must be done at the next stage that was not done at the last stage. In so far as this review period is now on the way, I had hoped that the Minister would have told us the proposals he intends making to the Commission, and his colleagues on the Council, to correct the defects which were all too evident in the regional fund over the last few years. This debate has not started in Ireland yet and the Minister could have highlighted what is required and what positive proposals the Government intend making. In the absence of those clear guidelines from the Government we felt, as an Opposition, that we had an obligation to pinpoint defects, some of which are obvious, and then make proposals when we change sides in this House shortly.
In relation to the regional fund it will be recalled that I said we all had great expectations about this fund four years ago but sadly it has been most disappointing. Why has it been a failure? We all agree that the amount provided was far too small. It was not adequate to deal with the imbalances that exist in Europe. I highlighted this by saying that the discrepancies in wealth or gross domestic product between, for instance, the richest area like Hamburg and the poorest area, the west of Ireland, had increased. Prior to accession Hamburg was five times ahead of us in terms of gross domestic product per head and now, after the operation of the regional fund, it is six times ahead. Therefore, far from correcting regional imbalances we have allowed them to be aggravated. That fact cannot be denied and it must be presented to the incoming Commission and Council to underline the fact that Europe has not been consistent and has allowed the imbalances to increase rather than diminish. The total fund for the three years was £542 million and for that period it was totally inadequate from the point of view of imbalances and inflation to deal reasonably with problems.
The regional fund is only one entity in regional policy—I acknowledge that immediately—but it is the most easily identifiable one and so one looks at it because it is so easily identifiable. Clearly, Ireland's allocation has been quite inadequate. A sum of £35 million over a three year period, taking inflation into account, does not represent anything like a serious attempt to deal with regional imbalances in so far as they are exemplified in the differences in our economic condition and wealthier states in the centre of Europe as distinct from ourselves who are on the periphery of Europe. Far from correcting the imbalances the fund has been such as actually to allow the imbalances to increase. That is just not good enough.
I quoted this morning something Mr. Roy Jenkins said on becoming President:
We want our deeds to be a little better than our words. Let us always do more than we promised to do.
The reverse of that has been the case where the regional funds are concerned since we joined the Community. The reverse has been obvious. We have an opportunity now of saying that we accept that principle and let the Community now deliver on it.
When we look at our Government's handling of the fund allocation we see a fault which can be attributed directly to ourselves. The allocation of £35 million over the three year period is flowing directly into the Exchequer. We have had this out on a number of occasions in the last few years. Can we pinpoint in the west, the south or anywhere else precisely what projects have grown out of our allocation from the regional fund? To what extent have projects been grant aided out of the regional fund? The Government have certain obligations and will continue to have those obligations to provide adequate financing for development projects. There have been industrial projects in relatively advantaged areas, in Dublin and along the south and east coasts. These, we are told, are benefiting from the regional fund. This fund should be applied to the most deserving areas, the disadvantaged areas in the west. In fact, the allocation has been used to supplement what the Government themselves should have been doing through the medium of IDA grants and so on. It has become impossible to identify precisely how much each project has benefited and what the Government would have felt obliged to give had the regional fund not been in existence. This is something that should be clearly analysed for our own benefit and also for the benefit of the Community because we should be able to show what advantages are coming to us directly from the Community.
The training programme in AnCO is carried through by moneys provided from the social fund. Every time the Minister for Labour talks about training programmes he should say that the money is provided by Europe. He should acknowledge that. He should also acknowledge the fact that the fund is not being put to effective advantage at the other end in the provision of jobs. In that way people would know what exactly is being done and by whom. That is the second criticism I have to make.
I referred to Governments channelling moneys from the regional fund into their own Exchequers. That should not happen and I hope that weakness will be corrected in the operation of the new fund which will now be established.
The Commission has very little control over the operation of the fund. Of course, we all like our own independence but this money is coming from Europe and Europe should be aware of how it is used and what control there is over its application. The only people who could make that information available are the national Government. We all like getting the money but we have a responsibility to those who provide the money. I hope in the future it will be possible for industrialists, local authorities and others to apply directly to the Commission on the basis of the allocation for Ireland. The application would, of course, have to be generated through the Government to some extent. The Government should shoulder their responsibility and not confuse the public with regard to what is regional fund assistance and what is a national obligation. We have all been guilty of ambivalence in this. The same pattern has been repeated in Italy. The money there was channelled into southern Italy. This is a weakness that must not be allowed to continue when the new regional fund is created. We must be able to see what exactly is being done with the money and to what effect it is being put.
Obviously, there will be a temptation for member states to say they will keep things as they are so that they can put these moneys into their respective Exchequers and use them to assist their own currency position. This must be avoided at all costs. We must have clear evidence of the success or failure of the regional fund to achieve its object. As it is, there is a defect in the system. If my suggestion is adopted, then we will be able to see the effect. It is not just good enough to put the money into the national Exchequer. The basic aim of the fund must be maintained. The basic aim was stated away back in 1972 or 1973. We all supported that but, having supported it, we did the exact opposite. The performance was far short of the promise. The aims must be clearly stated and it will be up to each Minister to implement those aims or even exceed them in terms of the commitment given.
The new fund must be a Community fund in the real sense. It must be in no way associated with national quotas. Understandably contributors will say they have been contributing so much to various funds and they now want to cut back. If they want to do that, then let that be clearly stated honestly by those contributors. We must have an open debate at the level of the Commission and the Council of Ministers as to what exactly they intend to do. If the Germans were to say: "We have been giving too much anyway and we will not put more into the regional fund", then at least we would all be faced with the realities of the regional fund, but there is no point in pretending the one and doing the other. In that sense it must be divorced from national quotas.
The national quota allocation has been such as to limit the operation of the fund in the areas of greatest need, and this country happens to be still one of those areas, and to apply it in areas where the need is not at all as critical. If it had been applied in the way it might have been, it would have helped to ensure that the discrepancies and disparities that exist in the levels of wealth and prosperity in Europe would not have developed to the extent that they have over the last number of years. It would have meant that Ireland would qualify for a much larger share of whatever fund was made available than it has done.
The amount of aid each country would get would and should. I submit, depend to a very considerable extent on the nature of the projects they submit for grant assistance, such as would give the greatest degree of employment, provide adequate development of infrastructures, including communications and so on. All of these would be suitable for development of the periphery within the periphery, namely, the west of Ireland, Ireland being peripheral to the European scene as a whole. All of these involve long term planning, in the first instance, on the part of the national governments, and would be submitted to the Commission. The right to apply directly and benefit directly from the fund would ensure that defects would be corrected. It should also mean that whatever would be applied from the regional fund would be applied without any reduction in the level of national aid to be applied to the particular problem under consideration. Otherwise we do not operate a regional fund effectively even within our own country.
This would ensure an equal opportunity for everyone to apply but it would also ensure that the Commission could play a more effective role. It might seem strange for me to be talking in terms of the role the Commission could play, but given adequate resources to discharge its obligations it can ensure that the imbalances throughout the Community which only the Commission as a Community instrument can achieve will be corrected; in other words, the responsibility would come back to them. To put it another way, supposing our allocation from the regional fund was even doubled, unless there was a greater answerability directly in the Commission, they still could not ensure that what we used here would be effectively used to eliminate the imbalances greater answerability directly to the Community. I know all of this depends on co-operation and that we must assume responsibility in each member state, but one must also recognise that responsibility can only be discharged where there is authority. The Commission should have a greater degree of authority in this direction, that is on the assumption, of course, that there are adequate resources to implement its policy. To that extent the Commission would have responsibility to implement regional policy through the social fund and through FEOGA, and all the time they would be in a central position to ensure a constant and consistent programme.
The European Parliament under direct elections could play an important role in this regard, but it seems to me that fixing a fund for a three year period in advance is sometimes simply a way of giving the impression to the public at large that this big amount of money is made available. Two things happen in the meantime. First of all, inflation, exchange rates and so on diminish the amount that a country such as ours will receive from the Community, although there are moves afoot in the Commission to correct this. Secondly, the only way this can be effectively done is that there would be a regular annual allocation which would mean that after each year there would be a review of progress and equally an admission of failure where failures occur.
Where there is a three year block, as there was in the last period, disparities can be aggravated and all of us are powerless to do anything about them during that three year period. I believe in long term planning, perhaps, in a way the Government do not, but I do not think this regular annual review would cut across long term planning within the European context. Deputy Thornley is here and I hope I can give way to him so that he can make more than the beginnings of his address. I would hope that the European Parliament, which he and others serve—and I am sorry the others cannot be here today because of their other obligations—would have more direct control each year over that fund and similar funds, which cannot be achieved with a global fund over a three year period. If we want these people to look after our interests as European Parliamentarians, then this annual review will be of vital importance to them in discharging that responsibility.
We also have the obligation—and I suppose this is the easiest thing for us to say as net beneficiaries—at least to state publicly, whatever will be the response from the Commission, what we think is the appropriate or minimum size for the fund over the next few years, having regard to the experience we have had with the all too diminished fund that has operated over the last number of years. Everybody has acknowledged that what has been applied has been far too small, and it is reasonable to expect that the size of the fund should be doubled for 1978. That would give us a figure of around £400 million which would bring us back somewhere close to the figure which the Commission themselves originally proposed in July, 1973. However, if allowance is to be made for inflation and the effect of recession on the Community's underdeveloped regions—and we obviously have suffered more than most—then this figure will have to be amended upwards in this first year to a figure in the region of £500 million. That is only to bring us back to where we were three years ago. If the fund is to be allocated and to have any impact on the disparities that exist in the Community, it will have to be of that order. If we were to get 6 per cent of that, it would give us a figure of between £24 million and £30 million, and this for one year would be a vast improvement on the global figure of £35 million which had to be accepted over a three year period.
There is another way of presenting it. Let us talk in terms of jobs being created and look at the national programme, what the Government propose, what we all recognise to be necessary. For instance the IDA say we need to create 17,000 new jobs in industry each year. This probably corresponds to roughly 25,000 gross when account is taken of job losses over the same period. Perhaps an extra 25,000 jobs need to be created to have a net 17,000 new jobs. Taking the IDA rate of job allocation and jobs being grantaided at the rate of approximately £4,000, that is, on the 1975 figures, that would be talking in terms of an annual grant of £100 million.
If the regional fund were to contribute a mere 25 per cent to that, we would benefit to the tune of £25 million. These are figures which we can present as hard facts and I hope they are being presented at the moment, though I have no evidence that this is so. Our total requirements would be considerably more because that is only for employment and to supplement the activities of the IDA. Taking account of infrastructural development, we would need about £40 million, which is not unrealistic in European terms. This would give us an opportunity to eliminate the imbalances which exist between ourselves and the rest of Europe. Some people may say it is not realistic to talk in terms of a fund of £400 million or £500 million in the first year but it is realistic according to the stated principles of the Community. They may say it is unrealistic to talk of Ireland benefiting to the amount of £40 million but it is realistic in terms of the programmes we should have and the commitment which Europe has set for itself. I would have hoped for an indication from the Minister as to what he is now proposing to the Commission which has this matter under review. I should like the Minister in his reply to give us the exact proposals of the Government. We have put the position on the record and we are setting a precedent for the Government in doing so publicly.
The social fund is very much involved in this and the tables show that it can be used to great advantage in implementing the regional policy of the Community. We have benefited to a very considerable extent from this. The fact that the new priorities of the social fund will be directed towards employment as much as towards training gives us an opportunity and an obligation to co-ordinate this with our own national plan. That depends, of course, on our having a national plan or programme. It is understandable that the Commission would set rather stringent guidelines for any assistance or loans or support in the absence of our presenting to them a national plan. We badly need such a plan so that the nation can respond and we can identify where we are going and so that Europe can judge our success or failure by our implementation of that plan. We have not used to full advantage the vast resources which we have got from the social fund.
In the last few days I have read an article written by the Minister called "Taking Stock Four Years On". I might say that I found the general tenor of this article appropriate to what I had hoped we would be discussing today. I took my theme from this article but there was very little stocktaking involved in the Minister's speech today. In the article the Minister said that the area we expected most from, the regional fund, we got least from and one of the areas we expected least from and from which we had no expectations at all, the social fund, was the area from which we got most. I say amen to that. We did not use the social fund to the best effect. We retrained people for jobs that did not exist. That is not consistent with our responsibilities as a member of the Community. We do not have limitless funds to shore up the economies of the various countries.
I might mention that I was rather surprised on reading the Minister's article that there was no mention of the question of fishery development. This would be considered by most people to be a most important matter at this time. I would have expected it to figure very prominently in any such report given by the Minister. I know that it is not possible to cover everything in one article but I expected to find some reference to this matter.
I will deal briefly with direct elections. Deputy Thornley will probably have more to say about this. It would have been appropriate for the Minister to make some reference to what this will mean for us. Someone whispered to me earlier that the Bill to give effect to this will be circulated tomorrow. Certainly the time has long passed when the Irish people should have been told something other than the constituencies in which they will vote. This has been arranged by Deputy Tully and I use the word "arranged" euphemistically. He is a master of electoral arrangements and he has learned his lesson very well. We should have started this very important debate already otherwise we may not have the time for it, depending on how long the Taoiseach postpones the general election. The man who should launch that debate is in the House. I understand the commitments which he has and the obligations he must fulfil. People can always criticise politicians for not doing what they should but let us have the launching of this debate very shortly. While it will not be an issue of conflict or disagreement in the general election, it is an issue which should be presented to the people before the general election so that they will know more about the direct elections when they occur in 1978. It is vitally important that this debate should get under way. I have referred to this before and the fact that I am making a brief reference to it today in no way minimises the importance which I and my party attach to this.
Enlargement is an issue which has been discussed. I was a little surprised to read a report of the conditions being set down by the Minister for our response to the applications of the other states. One of the conditions summarised in the Press appeared to be that their accession should not involve the diminution of our share. Perhaps that is too general a summary but it seems that if their accession were to mean a diminution in our share of the various funds, then we would not be very enthusiastic supporters.
It is recognised that all democratic states of Europe have basically the right to membership of the Community when they fulfil the conditions subject to normal practical negotiations. That is the purpose of the foundation of the Community. We were anxious to get in for a number of political and economic reasons— very definitely for economic reasons so that we could ensure, for instance, that we would not have to subsidise our food for the British market under their cheap food policy. It does not come too well from us having got in to be saying to others who are also entitled to come in according to European ideals "Wait a minute, Greece", or Spain or Turkey as the case might be, "our support for your entry will be conditional on the strengthening of the institutions of Europe". That is fine. That is a matter for the existing Nine. The strengthening of the commitment within Europe is also a matter for the existing Nine and we will not be diminishing our share. That is not the right approach. Europe globally, even allowing for the undeveloped regions, such as we are, within it, is still a comfortable Community. We cannot consistently face the world outside of Europe while simply trying to protect the position of those in Europe who are already members. What right have we to say to Greece or Spain or Turkey, if they meet democratic criteria "No, because it is going to mean you poorer nations joining and we have enough poor nations already. God knows we have Ireland and they are a chronic problem"? That does not make sense. There are, after all, political reasons to the advantage of the existing member states why these countries should be there. Sometimes to have the advantage of their political accession they may have to acknowledge that there are financial transfers to be applied.
