Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 5 May 1977

Vol. 299 No. 3

Industrial Development Bill, 1976: Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Mr. Halligan

When concluding I quoted a sentence from the Minister's speech which I regarded as being at the heart of the Bill. The Minister said that it is an essential part of our industrial strategy to strengthen and develop our existing domestic industry. That is a very unnecessary statement. In the past the IDA have been criticised for fostering foreign enterprise virtually to the exclusion of domestic enterprise and people like myself have criticised Irish private enterprise for being singularly lacking in enterprise. The Minister should have said that the central part of our industrial strategy is to strengthen and develop our existing domestic industry. The word "essential" as used by the Minister is an apology for past policy and is an admission that private enterprise has lamentably failed in the past and is not really regarded as providing the major portion of our job requirements in the future.

The Minister also referred to sectoral restructuring. Irish industry generally is open to the severest criticism in this regard. The previous speaker, the former member of the Fianna Fáil Cabinet which led us into Europe and opened up the Irish economy, which had been fostered behind tariff walls, to international free trade said that they had been given all sorts of information about the effects of free trade in EEC conditions. The CIO reports during the early and mid-sixties spelt out in graphic detail the sectoral restructuring which was necessary if certain Irish industries were to be protected from the full severity of free trade. Free trade was first introduced under the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement as a deliberate prelude to the EEC. Free trade was fully introduced on our entry into the EEC. Those reports went unheeded and were disparaged and Irish management paid the penalty for that by being made virtually extinct in many cases, and Irish workers pay for it through continuing redundancies. Traditional industries, mainly the textile industry, the clothing and footwear industries have been affected. The restructuring which was necessary, and which would have been undertaken by aggressive and far-sighted management, even without the aid of CIO reports and Government incentives did not take place, because management was to a great extent introspective.

Many middle-aged people, with growing families, now on the dole queues can thank shortsighted management for their present position. Sectoral restructuring is essential if an economy is to adapt to changing conditions. Theoretically, it was supposed to happen under market forces, but that does not always occur. Under market forces existing industries can disappear and a product will be supplied from outside the economy. We are talking about the continuation of the supply of a product by Irish workers and the so-called impetus of the market does not automatically take place. It requires the outside intervention of an agency such as the State to ensure that that happens. This is being provided for under this Bill. There is now assistance for amalgamations and for acquisitions by way of loan guarantee and interest subsidy for the capital required.

The Minister said that it is hoped that this Bill will encourage the financial institutions to be more forthcoming in financing industrial restructuring. This is a quiet, but explicit criticism of Irish financial institutions which have been lacking in the provision of working capital for new enterprises, and in providing necessary finance for the restructuring of existing industry. The financial institutions were as shortsighted as Irish industry in not foreseeing what would happen. I hope the Minister's quiet admonition will be taken for what it is. It should be a stern warning to Irish financial institutions that they must be more involved, more aggressive and more far-sighted in relation to industrial restructuring. They cannot be passive in a situation where the necessary changes do not take place rapidly enough, if we are to maintain our market position. The financial institutions set themselves up as the guardians of the whole system and they are open to very severe criticism for having failed in the role which they so generously gave themselves.

This Bill makes provision for specific investment in research and development and in product development. The Minister referred to the fact that since 1970, 350 projects have been approved. The Minister also referred to the fact that per capita investment is low in research and development, by European standards. The grant limit is being increased from £15,000 to £50,000. That is not an inordinate amount of money when one thinks of the cost of highly qualified researchers and the equipment they very often use.

It is indicative of the lack of innovation in Irish industry and its lack of enterprise that our investment in R and D should be so low. You can judge the health of various economies and even individual companies by, in the case of an economy looking at the amount of GNP devoted to R and D and, in the case of a company, the amount of total sales allocated to R and D. In the middle 1950s the number of scientists engaged in research and development here could literally be counted on one hand. Even today the total scientific labour force engaged in research and development is lamentably low, and we have slow economic growth because of slow industrial growth.

The Bill also makes provision for equity participation by the IDA in industrial projects with a new limit of up to £1 million. It makes provision, too, for joint ventures. Both of these provisions are to be supported and welcomed and not least by members of my party who might be expected to have some ideological objections to such activity by the IDA. I have none whatsoever.

A very welcome innovation in the Bill is the establishment of project identification for import substitution. The Minister made the point that, in the past 18 months, the IDA went to about 400 Irish firms with specific propositions for import substitution. That is a lamentable commentary on the lack of enterprise by Irish industry. The IDA, who are not a moneymaking operation and whose primary aim is the creation of employment for social purposes, had to go to Irish companies in the past 18 months with 400 specific propositions for import substitution.

I often think if we spent as much time, energy and money on import substitution as we spent on export development we would be in a far healthier position. It was economic stupidity on the one hand to seek to develop export markets while, on the other hand, permitting our own domestic markets to be captured and eroded by competing imports. As it was opened up progressively, the domestic market became the captive of foreign companies and our own companies originally supplying the market were swept away without any policy of keeping them in business. This project identification unit inside the IDA is to be welcomed in the sense that at least it will provide Irish industry with an element of enterprise which that structure has been lacking in itself up to now.

The previous speaker referred to the second point I want to make in a brief general context, that is, a national development corporation, a proposition which has been put forward by members of my party from time to time and to which the Taoiseach referred at the IMI conference last Saturday in Killarney. It cannot be seen outside the context of planning. I do not intend to go into planning in any great depth or detail now except to say the words of Professor Louden Ryan at the end of the IMI conference are worthy of note. He said everybody at the IMI conference was talking about the necessity for planning but nobody had defined what he meant by planning. It reminded me of Edward, Prince of Wales, in 1890 saying: "We are all socialists now." That is easy to say if one does not give a precise definition of what is meant by a socialist. We could use his phrase and say we are all planners now, provided nobody asks too accurately what is meant by planning. The Opposition, the IMI, the IFA, the financial institutions and the trade union movement are all in favour of planning.

Mr. Briscoe

The only people who are not are the Government.

Mr. Halligan

We can all reach agreement on the necessity for planning. When we would begin to fall out and begin to disagree is when we define what is meant by planning. What I meant by planning is not an up-to-date or glossier version of programming which went under the name of planning when Fianna Fáil were in power. By planning I mean the conscious control and direction of investment by the State. Planning without a political context is meaningless. Planning is not the creation of a business environment in which it is easier to make a profit, which is what the IMI mean by planning. It is quite different. It is the conscious direction of the economy towards the achievement of stated goals and objectives and, in our case, the stated goal and objective must be achievement of full employment within the shortest possible period of time. That is what is meant by planning in the context in which the word is used by members of this party. It is quite different from what is meant by others.

I always listen with great suspicion when I hear panegyrics about planning coming from the Opposition because really what they mean is nothing more than the discredited and discarded attempts at programming which characterised their period in office and which ended in the disappearance of the Third Programme which went down the plughole in 1970. It is ludicrous for members of the party opposite to demand planning now in conditions of economic recession and uncertainty when they threw out the window the Third Programme in conditions far less hazardous than those which currently face us.

Within the context of planning I have made the point that there is a great necessity, as a complement to this Bill, for the establishment of a national development corporation. I do not see it as in any way supplanting the role of the IDA, but rather as complementing it. Before Question Time I made the point that, even with the greatest possible expansion of industry as a result of this Bill, even with the most propitious external circumstances in the world economy, we cannot expect to meet more than half of the job requirements in the future. On the other hand, we do not expect, nor could we possibly tolerate, that those who do not get work should emigrate. Where are the missing jobs for the other half to come from? I have suggested, as have others, that they must come from an enhanced and developed State sector, specifically through the agency of a national development corporation.

I want to make it perfectly clear that I do not see this in any way being hostile or inimical, as Deputy Brennan suggested, to private enterprise. I have stated my views quite clearly in other places, and I stated them recently to the IMI who will shortly be publishing my remarks at their chief executives' forum. The national situation in relation to unemployment and the population generally is so serious that this is not a time for ideological confrontation. It is a time when the only question we should ask of any enterprise, of any proposition, of any proposal, is: will it provide work? Will it provide jobs? If the answer is "yes", let us do it.

When the Taoiseach said he had no ideological prejudice one way or the other he was voicing a pragmatic attitude. I have the same pragmatic attitude towards private enterprise. If it will provide employment, I have no ideological prejudice against it at the moment. It will not provide all of those who are seeking work with work and, therefore, we have to have something else.

I want to make it perfectly clear, too, that in the past the public sector has been confined to two roles, that of providing public utilities where a private monopoly would be socially dangerous such as the ESB, and that of providing services or developing resources which private enterprise failed to promote on grounds of unprofitability, such as Bord na Móna. There has never been a coherent statement on the State's role in industrial development. That has been a great lacuna in our industrial development process. Neither am I proposing that the national development corporation should be a hold-all for lame ducks; in other words, that for every private enterprise that was about to go under there was a refuge where it could run, that somebody would keep it going no matter how unprofitable it might be. I do not mean that either and I do not want the analogy to be made with certain actions of the British Labour Government in attempting to shore up some obviously unprofitable and unviable enterprises. I do not propose a rubbish dump for lame ducks. I am proposing the creation of a State holding company analogous to that of Sweden which controls a group of State companies accounting for about 5 per cent of manufacturing output. It is in a diverse range of technology, from the more traditional to the most advanced, with emphasis on heavy industry. In advocating a State development corporation to act as a co-ordinating holding company nobody is putting forward an unproven solution but a model which already exists in Europe's most advanced economy.

The proposition is not new in this country. Since 1969 at least it has been put forward by the Labour Party in their policy documents. It would be in the best interests of the Irish economy to establish this corporation very rapidly, particularly in the context of the development of our natural resources, which is referred to in the closing stages of the Minister's speech. I do not believe it would be in the best interests of the Irish economy if separate companies were set up, for instance, to manage a State smelter as is envisaged or, ultimately, a State oil company because I would fear the power, often the negative power, of self-contained industrial empires even where they are State companies.

I believe that State companies in minerals, metals, metal manufacturing and fabrication, oil, gas and petrochemicals—all of which are possible —are potentially gigantic in terms of our past and present industrial experience. They could grow disproportionately large in relation to the rest of the economy. They could be virtually uncontrollable and unaccountable to anybody, including the Oireachtas.

For that reason there would be problems of sub-optimisation. In other words, these companies would put their own objectives above national objectives and, therefore, they would not operate as effectively as one would wish from a national point of view. At the moment there is a serious lack of co-ordination and co-operation between semi-State companies, and this is lamentable in an unemployment situation. It is also true that none of those companies has a fiat given to them by the Government to develop in such a way as to create the maximum amount of employment in the shortest possible time.

For these reasons I am firmly of the conviction that we should have a State development corporation or a national development corporation to act as a holding company with wholly-owned State companies, fully accountable, and with equity capital in joint ventures covering the entire economy except for public utilities such as transport, power and telecommunications. I do not envisage that this proposition will be accepted without opposition. Clearly there is much opposition to this concept, but unless something radical is done in terms of innovation and industrial development we will continue to have persistently high levels of unemployment that will be socially unacceptable. In certain circumstances they could produce such stress that they would place in question the institutions of the State. I do not think that is too heightened a way to paint the prospect that could face us.

For that reason I advocate as a complement to this Bill a new departure in State industrial development policy by the freeing for the first time of the entire State sector from the shackles placed on it by private enterprise ideology. This has prevented it from going out to the market-place and competing where it was possible to do so, very often against companies masquerading under an Irish name, and sometimes in the Irish language, which were nothing more than foreign subsidiaries acting at the behest of companies and boards elsewhere.

I hope the very nature of our population problem will cause many people who have an ideological objection to the State to look in a new fashion at the State's role in industrial development. In this Bill we are accepting that major State involvement is necessary in private enterprise if we are to meet the social goal of full employment. Under this Bill every possible aid is being given to private enterprise, from capital subsidies, interest, training, project identification. Behind the Bill there is a panoply of State agencies who offer additional help and support. In addition, we should say that the State itself should be involved directly in manufacturing or in services wherever there is an opportunity to do so and it should not be restricted on ideological grounds. The great necessity now is for employment-generating opportunities. We are faced with the situation where even on the basis of the best years of this economy we only provided half of what we will require in terms of jobs each year for the next decade. This will be the problem of whatever Government are in office. It will be in times when the world economy will be far less buoyant than it was during the 1960s and at the beginning of the 1970s. It is questionable whether the world economy will ever return to that level of performance. Up to 1973 we went through 25 years of world buoyancy in international trade and I do not think that will be repeated.

The total compass of this Bill is to be welcomed. Taken together the individual components add up to a meaningful package and I should think they will answer most of the requirements of Irish and foreign industry in terms of expansion of development. It is an intelligent and imaginative Bill and in some instances it is courageous. To quote the Minister "in one area it is frankly experimental". We need to experiment and we need the courage to stand over experiments that fail having regard to our need for employment.

In addition to that, I hope an industrial development Bill will be introduced in this House establishing a national development corporation which will enfranchise the State's sector to engage in industrial development. In that case we may hold out the prospect that within a not too unreasonable period we will be able to achieve full employment for the first time.

Mr. Briscoe

Having listened to the previous speaker one feels the oracle has spoken. Nothing sickens me to my stomach more than listening to Deputy Halligan speaking on the economy. He chastises the Fianna Fáil Party because of their economic plans which he said did not work. This shows how little he knows about the recent history of Fianna Fáil plans.

This was the Government who were going to set up the Department of Economic Planning. They have not produced an economic plan in over four years. I am very worried about the IMI when I think of Deputy Halligan addressing them. I wonder what kind of people they are because anybody who has any knowledge of business or economics knows very well that Deputy Halligan does not know one end from the other. It makes me sick listening to those unctuous platitudes from Deputy Halligan. The country is fed up listening to them.

Mr. Halligan

I apologise for making the Deputy ill.

Mr. Briscoe

I thank the Deputy. I hope he apologises to the nation as well, as he makes them pretty sick too. The First Programme for Economic Expansion exceeded its targets and was a great success. The second programme reached all its targets. The third programme was not a fiasco. Some of the targets, although not all, were reached. At least it was a plan and was something by which we could measure. The Government have not even brought out a census. They are afraid to do this. They talk about planning with State development boards. The people are concerned about getting jobs. The Government, through their taxation policy, have driven more people out of work than any other Government in the history of the State.

I welcome certain sections of the Bill particularly the one which seeks to encourage first-time entrepreneurs. I attended a meeting yesterday evening of the Catholic Youth Council, who cater for over 200,000 young people in the city of Dublin, County Dublin and part of Kildare and Wicklow. They are very anxious to get small industrial schemes and craft industries in order to train young persons who are out of work. They have had meetings with the IDA but apparently because they have no capital to put into those schemes they cannot be considered for a grant. I hope the Minister will get the IDA to give a small grant to this body to encourage them to get young people to work.

The Catholic Youth Council would like to get a scheme going throughout the 200 clubs they have, which are very rarely in use in the daytime, to train young persons in certain skills. A grant should be available from the IDA for such work. Those people would be trained for a certain period in certain skills and would then go on their own and develop the skills they had learned. This matter should be taken up with the IDA.

I like the term "first-time entrepreneurs". Entrepreneurs is a good word but it is a dirty word in the thinking of Deputy Halligan and other people like him. If it were not for entrepreneurs there would be no employment for people. We must encourage young people to be successful and to create employment for others. I have great praise for people who have made the big time. There are people who have the urge to build an empire and to create something. Recently on television we got an insight into the Smurfit Group and how they have grown over the years. Here are entrepreneurs who have created many jobs for our people. We want more people like that. We want to see incentives given to people.

It is very important that the IDA be very concerned about the management of any industry starting up. It is important that the money that belongs to the taxpayer does not go down the drain. They should, however, encourage bodies such as the Catholic Youth Council. When they come along with a proposal to set up a workshop in a particular place and they have a number of people willing to teach skills to people, whether it is manufacturing souvenirs, clothing items or various other things, they should be encouraged.

A great amount of work needs to be done. There are 200 clubs in Dublin. If 150 of them were able to avail of a scheme from the IDA and train two or three young people this would be a tremendous boost. The IDA should encourage this. They should set up a special section dealing with small cottage industries and have consultations with some youth bodies to see what can be done. They should, in co-operation with AnCO, get to work on schemes to enable people to help themselves.

There is another aspect of the Bill I want to refer to. I refer particularly to what the Minister said in relation to the enterprise development programme complimenting the small industries programme. What small industries will this help? Will the kind of scheme I have outlined be included in this? Something good might be produced if the IDA would look at this. I was puzzled when the Minister said that the authority's power of loan guarantee and interest subsidy would be extended to working capital borrowed for such ventures. He then stated:

This type of scheme is new in this country and is frankly experimental, but the indications for its success are good and I have every confidence that it will become a useful generator of new industrial activity.

He later stated:

For some sectors re-equipment alone is not the answer, there is also a need for re-organisation and restructuring. The proposal in the Bill concerning sectoral restructuring is designed to meet this need which has been accentuated by the recession.

We have yet to see evidence that the recession is now over according to the Minister for Finance. This looks very like a blueprint of a policy statement which is coming out, possibly for an election, about what the Government intend to do. It is full of promise but there is no action. The people are sick listening to the promises the Government have been making while the economy has been deteriorating.

Towards the end of his speech the Parliamentary Secretary referred to our performance in 1976 as being remarkably encouraging. He told us that manufacturing output increased by more than 11 per cent while the volume of manufactured exports increased by about 20 per cent compared with 1975. However, since 1975 showed the lowest performance for many years it will be seen that the comparison was with a year in which there was a gigantic drop in output.

One of the major factors in the closing down of industry, in industrialists losing the will to operate, was the cost of fuel. It is to be noted that while the increases imposed by the Arabs since 1973 on a gallon of petrol have amounted to 12p, the Minister for Finance during that time has applied increases amounting to 35p per gallon or approximately three times the increase applied by the Arab countries. The Government are to blame for what is the worst recession in any country in Europe and this in a country which is supposed to have stable Government.

I trust that the IDA will use the least amount possible of red tape and will give every encouragement, particularly to small industries and voluntary organisations, to create employment for young people. There is a big problem in regard to finding work for school leavers. We must encourage voluntary bodies to help in solving this problem and the IDA, in close co-operation with AnCO should lend their expertise in solving the problem and creating an environment in which there is an incentive to expand industries.

Mr. Dowling

Every encouragement should be given by this House to any effort made towards providing job opportunities and relieving pressures on employers in regard to the retention of staff. It is late in the day that the Government have begun to take stock of the high unemployment figures. Industry, as a result of sabotage by the Government, has been allowed to run down considerably so that we now have what is perhaps the highest level of unemployment ever. In addition to the 118,000 already on the live register account must be taken of the 40,000 school leavers who will be coming into the live register. When a situation is allowed to deteriorate to this extent, it is very difficult to redress it. In the past the IDA have done wonderful work in very difficult circumstances. Nobody wishes to detract from their success but it must be a severe blow to them to find that while they have been endeavouring to create employment, to attract foreign industrialists, the Government, by various other measures, have been stifling growth and creating a situation that destroys incentive. The policies of the Minister for Finance and his efforts to scrape every pot in order to obtain more tax, have interfered with the development and progress of industry. The IDA have had to contend with a situation in which the Government were wrecking Irish industry. However, this situation is in keeping with what occurred during the terms of office of previous Coalitions.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy must speak to the Bill.

Mr. Dowling

The first Coalition, for example, were responsible for the loss of a heavy engineering industry in my constituency, an industry for which the equipment had been procured and the factory built. I refer to what was known as the chassis shop at Inchicore which had received some government finance but which was sold to people far removed from out shores and who were then supplying us with the commodities that the factory here was intended to produce.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I have told the Deputy that he must speak to the Bill.

Mr. Dowling

It is all right to talk of incentives but the practical situation is another matter. There is a question about whether the moneys we are talking about will ever be made available since Bills of this nature can be merely window dressing. As Deputy Briscoe stated, we are being presented with this Bill on the eve of a general election and when, perhaps, there are as many as 160,000 people out of work. Have the Government any excuse for not taking remedial measures during the past three years to deal with the situation? Why was assistance not given to those people who wished to develop either small industries or industries of the type referred to in the Bill? Had a proper industrial environment been maintained many of the people now out of work could be employed gainfully. We hear of how such schemes as the free education scheme and the free health service operate but what is the reality?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy may not discuss on this Bill such matters as the health service.

Mr. Dowling

One must treat with suspicion any and every Bill that comes before the House because we know the history.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy must relate his remarks to the Bill before the House.

Mr. Dowling

I am relating my remarks to the Bill. I treat with suspicion everything we have been told time and time again by Ministers. We were told of the great health scheme and other schemes that were coming, but they never came. They all got bogged down and the only result was an increase in the human misery all too obvious throughout the working-class constituency I represent, a constituency with the highest unemployment rate in the country, twice the national average. It is our duty to speak out here loud and clear about the conditions that exist. A survey carried out in this area showed that 25 per cent of those who left school in 1969 were still unemployed. In the same survey 24 per cent of the parents were unemployed. That is a serious situation, one requiring more extensive remedial measures than are proposed in this Bill.

We do not want a whitewashing operation. We want something that will take the people off the dole queues. Recently the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Welfare told us there are 33,000 in the dole queues in Dublin alone. In reply to two questions I tabled to the Taoiseach he did not know the number of school leavers unemployed in a particular area and he did not know the number unemployed in Dublin as a whole.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Again, the Chair will have to tell the Deputy that he must relate his remarks to the Bill before the House and not to unemployment or employment per se.

Mr. Dowling

Any debate on industrial development must relate to the existing situation. This Bill is in relief of the existing situation and, in order to assess the situation, we must know exactly what the situation is. Bills of this nature are not enough. We want active service, not lip service. We must ensure that people are provided with the opportunities to which they are entitled.

The objectives of the Bill are to introduce two new incentives to encourage new enterprises and to facilitate sectoral restructuring as well as providing additional technical assistance to developing countries. AnCO and other agencies have trained and retrained personnel. Some are undergoing refresher course after refresher course because there are no job opportunities available. There are no opportunities because of the Government's callous neglect of the industrial situation. This Bill does not go far enough. It will not create the necessary jobs. This Government have trained the greatest number ever to stand in the dole queues. What is needed is a comprehensive look at the situation and concrete action to redress the situation. We may take some people off the dole queues by sending them to third countries requiring technical assistance.

New enterprises will only come about if the proper climate is created. That climate will not be there if there is a lack of confidence. If that climate is not there industrialists will not invest. There are industrialists who would be willing to invest if they knew there was a climate of confidence in the country. I believe a change of Government would bring that about and we would find industrialists only too willing to avail of the facilities we have. I hope that time will not be long in coming.

The restructuring of industries is important. Far too many have been allowed to run down. Those willing to build up industry must be assisted. We know the problems and the pressure points. Steps must be taken to save existing industries which are in danger of running down. It is the aim of this Bill to provide an additional function to the IDA concerning technical assistance to developing countries. We can supply such assistance because we have the trained personnel. People must be given every opportunity to perfect their technical knowledge and ability so that they can examine the technological advancement and technical development problems and can bring back here, as many have done in the past, that expertise that will enable our industries to develop.

While we have people with such expertise on the labour exchanges here let us give them an opportunity to use their knowledge at the earliest possible moment. There is reference here to the native entrepreneurs who have not been coming forward in sufficient numbers. The Government know full well why these people have not been coming forward. They have no faith in the Government, who have practised deception and presented misleading policies over the years. Members of my party know that, given the right conditions, many such people would be only too willing to assist in the development of industry.

If such development is to take place it can only be done on the basis of full and factual information. That type of information can only be accumulated by a scientific survey such as a census. The Government have not allowed a census to take place. Therefore it is impossible for people to get a comprehensive picture on which to make plans for the future. The Government must be condemned for their failure on this score. Such failure deprives the IDA and other people involved in industry of an opportunity of assessing the situation fully and factually. The position may be so bad that the Government do not want them to know, and neither do they want the Opposition to know. It is obvious that from time to time the Government have concealed much information which people would require if they were to participate in building up this ailing economy of ours which has been run down as a result of callous neglect first, because of the financial outlook of the Government, then because of the Cabinet battles that have taken place between Ministers in relation to various problems. It would appear that employment and industrial development were a low priority in the minds of many of the Ministers.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is straying from the Bill.

Mr. Dowling

The whole base of Government policy involves collective responsibility. Far too often a Minister introduces a Bill in this House and another Minister condemns it outside. Will this happen on this occasion? The Minister for Fisheries, Deputy Donegan, condemned a Bill outside the House that was brought in here not so long ago. Other Bills were brought in by the Government which the Taoiseach voted against.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy must keep to the Bill before the House.

Mr. Dowling

One wonders if this Bill has been introduced under the mantle of collective responsibility or under the mantle of an individual Minister. In the introduction of legislation here we should know at an early stage whether it is Government policy or the fad of a Minister, whether it is to cover up for the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the past.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I must again advise the Deputy to keep to the provisions of the Bill.

Mr. Dowling

I do not think I have strayed from the area of the Bill. In dealing with legislation one has to move into the wider orbit of Government policy. This is part and parcel of industrial development, part and parcel of the vital spark that is missing from Irish industry. We want to assess the situation now to find out exactly what this Bill means, on what authority it has been presented to the House. We have spent long hours debating measures that have come before this House.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Chair will not permit the Deputy to go further on that line. We are not having a general debate. The Chair has asked the Deputy on at least three occasions to keep to the Bill.

Mr. Dowling

The Minister said that he would like to discuss the objectives of the Bill and then make some comments on industrial development generally. If Ministers are permitted to make such comments generally, the same opportunity should be afforded to members of the Opposition. One must take into consideration all the factors that surround industrial development, the small and large industries, the cottage industries that Deputy Briscoe spoke about, and all the factors relating to the development and the downfall of industries. It is only when we take all these factors into consideration that we can really assess the merits of this Bill. The Minister says that many Irish people both in this country and overseas have the qualifications and experience and the ideas to make successful industrialists. This is quite true. They are there in their thousands and I am quite sure that from time to time these people will return, but only when there is a change of Government, and again that may not be too long in coming. These Irish people have come and gone. They have been unable to obtain the type of information that is required in order to make a long-term decision to commit their capital, their ideas or their expertise to a new venture.

In entering into a new venture one must be absolutely satisfied, and I am sure the IDA are making every effort, despite the circumstances under which they operate, to provide information on the assessment of job opportunities, expertise and qualifications. These are factors. The labour pool is a factor. Can we have satisfactory statistics? If we have will this survey assist this Bill or help these people to make up their minds? If it does the labour survey will have done a good job, and so will the Bill. People who have come here tell us that they are unable to obtain the type of information they require, whether it be from the Ordnance Survey, the Department of Labour or the Manpower Service. Statistics were presented in this House no later than yesterday, selected statistics which give an erroneous impression. I would not like to see statistics being presented that are not factual and do not give the full picture. I would not like to see people who have the expertise and necessary finance being "conned" into coming here and then finding collapse after collapse of industry here.

The Minister spoke about new initiatives to help that part of the financial package for which the first-time entrepreneur cannot supply on his or her own. Some type of financial assistance is absolutely necessary and the greater the problem the Government create the greater the incentives will have to be. With a change of Government tomorrow we would not have to alter any structure and people would come here with expertise and qualifications. A greater effort could be made to assist smaller industries. Substantial efforts have been made in the past, many of them successful and the results are evident at the moment. Great credit is due to people who started in a small way, and to the IDA for their efforts in stimulating and assisting them. How many more industries might be created if we had the proper climate? We would not have 150,000 people in the dole queues if we had the proper direction and proper ministerial confidence.

For the last few months I have not seen the Minister for Industry and Commerce. I understand he is somewhere now talking about all the jobs that will be available in the near future. We are approaching a general election and we will hear many statements of this type between now and the general election. We heard them before the last one. The Minister has a job to do at home because of the very serious situation which exists here in relation to industrial development. There are other agencies competent to do the job abroad without the assistance of the Minister. His presence would hinder rather than assist the type of development we all hope to achieve. The personnel in the agencies we have are competent and have done their job in the past wisely and well and they have attracted to this country many large industries and in the future they will, without the assistance of the Minister, attract more industry. When a Minister such as the present Minister goes abroad, people listening to him must be concerned as to whether he is speaking on his own behalf or on behalf of his Government. Many people have been "conned" into believing that some policies were about to be perfected and put into operation, only to find that the Minister who introduced them had reneged on his promises, and so had the Government. This is not the type of Government to which people will respond in any measure in the future.

However creditable this Bill may be, however worthy it may look, it must be treated with suspicion when it is introduced in this way at this time when the Government have so ruthlessly sabotaged the industrial development of this State over the years. Industrial sabotage is nothing new. It has taken place in the past and probably will in the future. If we are merely going to replace one industry with another that is not good enough. We must increase the number of industries and of job opportunities and we must ensure a future for our children and their children and we must see that this is done effectively.

This Bill will not achieve what is required. It will not shorten dole queues. It may assist some people but there is nothing in it revolutionary enough to meet the situation that has been allowed to creep up on us over the last few years. This Government have constantly blamed one source or another. When they do not blame Fianna Fáil for their mishaps they blame the Arabs. The truth is that the people will have confidence in us. The great industries that were built up here were built up under Fianna Fáil over the years and we look forward to the day when we can develop even greater industries. We hope that Governments if they change in the future will not sabotage industry as was done in the past. Industrial sabotage hits at the heart of the nation, at the purse of the housewife and at the pocket of the working man. The working men know all too well the tragedy that has been inflicted upon us.

This Bill is being read the Second Time. As it reaches Committee Stage we will have more to say in relation to the aids necessary for an ailing industry. They are necessary to ensure attraction of new enterprise. It is sad to think that so many industrialists have indicated their desire to come here and for one reason or another they have been pushed out into the wilderness. Not so long ago a major chemical industry wished to locate here and because of lack of support from the Minister and the Government that industry was allowed to leave after much development work had taken place. Members of the IDA when they have succeeded in capturing giant chemical industries which would create a large volume of employment, must become depressed when they see them drifting away from this country after the necessary arrangements had been made for their establishment.

What is required is some link-up between the trade unions, who must think in realistic terms, and the industrialists who are endeavouring to develop here. Some industrialists may wish to develop in a way in which they have been trained and in which their techniques can be developed, different though they may be from ours. There must be a period when they can attune themselves to our way of thinking and our structure within the trade unions. The Government have responsibility to ensure that trade union obstacles are not responsible for impeding industrial development. Trade unions have in some cases been responsible for the closing down of industries.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Surely the Deputy cannot relate that to the Bill.

Mr. Dowling

There must be an understanding between industrialists and trade unions so as to have industrial peace. This lack of understanding between industrialists and trade unions has caused a lot of the trouble. There must be a free flow of information between trade unions and prospective industrial developers so as to ensure that impediments will not arise at a later stage. Industrial development will take place if people have confidence. We have trained personnel waiting to cope with any industrial development set up here if the money is available to set up industry. Many Irish people who live abroad are available to set up investments here. I hope that in the not-too-distant future they will be able to realise their ambitions and set up small or large industries here. One of the vital factors in the development of industry is statistics so that long term plans can be made. No long term plans can be made in this country because effective statistics are not available. The Government by not having a census have effectively sabotaged future job opportunities for many of the young people.

In my area and elsewhere there are industrial estates where advance factories are left idle for two or three years. This situation must be examined to find out why advance factories are left idle for so long. There must be something wrong when the finance is available, when the people are available and the factories are available but are not put into action. Every day we see goods being sold which could be manufactured here. The Minister should do something to enable these factories to be put into production. If the Minister has a number of industrialists abroad who would be willing to come here, new jobs could be created within a very short time. The Minister has been making election speeches abroad. He should come home and examine the plight of Irish workers who are crying out for jobs. The IDA and the other institutions which seek industrialists abroad can do that effectively, but the Minister's job is at home where many redundancies that could have been avoided, if suitable action had been taken, have taken place.

The Minister will probably only impede progress abroad. I hope that the time will come when we will have suitable people in power who will develop a climate of confidence that will attract industries without new incentives to come here to develop industry and facilitate the production of job opportunities that are not here at present. I hope that the situation in Dublin will be improved by a financial injection that will stimulate employment so as to employ some of the unemployed. We also need job opportunities for the young people who will be leaving school during the next few months.

Debate adjourned.