Naturally, Fine Gael welcome and support this Bill. The Minister gave a brief description of its purpose. He said also, quite rightly, that Córas Tráchtála—like everybody else in the world today—have to bear the consequences of inflation as well as those of their own increased activities. In order to put that into some money perspective the House might be interested to see the extent to which this inflation and the expansion of their own services have overtaken them.
Since the original Act of 1959 there have been several other Acts with the same purpose as this legislation, all increasing the cumulative amount of money which the State was authorised to advance to Córas Tráchtála for their operations. In the last decade these Acts have come at approximately three-year intervals. With regard to the amount authorised by the Oireachtas in 1974 I see that over £13 million has been taken up. That is a large sum in a period of less than three years because the date given by the Minister is still in 1976. In the previous three-year period the sum absorbed was approximately £6 million and in the two-year period before that it was only £4,500,000. I presume the additional £20 million for which authority has now been given will cover the needs of Córas Tráchtála for approximately another three years. Nobody will grudge that money because the results of the export effort to which Córas Tráchtála have contributed heavily are amazing. They leave us in the happy position of heading a table in the European league in the positive sense for once, rather than being, as we have been since we joined the Community, at the head of a league which is depressing and negative, such as the unemployment league.
The expansion of export trade has been extremely marked in the past year, as the Minister has pointed out; he gave percentage figures and also absolute figures. In the first eight months of this year the increase was nearly an increase of a half compared with the first eight months of the previous year. That increase is accounted for by a number of factors that are not controversial. So far as the world outside Britain is concerned, it is partly due to the devaluation of the English £ to which we are linked, which had the effect of rendering our products that much more competitive in price-sensitive areas. It also had the effect of depressing relatively the rate of growth of Irish exports on the British market and this, in turn, in another aspect of the fact which the Minister mentioned, namely, that the growth of Irish exports in the world outside the British market was relatively much greater. Naturally, the benefit of devaluation did not operate between us and the British and that may account in part for the much slower growth in our exports to that market and our correspondingly lesser dependence on it compared with the growth in exports to other markets.
Another factor which has played a major part in the growth of exports has been the role and contribution of a large number of grant aided IDA-introduced export orientated firms. Many of them are highly capital intensive in spite of the best efforts of the IDA and the consequence is that the very steep rise in industrial production and exports has not unfortunately had a great impact on our unemployment figures. Nevertheless, the benefit to the country from these new industries in other respects is very considerable and the IDA should not be left out of the credit that is being distributed here this morning.
Another factor which I hope the House will regard as non-contentious is the beneficent influence on our trading situation of the wage agreement reached last year, after a very long period during which the Government were being urged by people on all sides to "do what the Government were elected to do", namely, "to govern". Although they had not the courage to say so, what these people really meant was that the Government should impose a wage regime by force of law. None of them bothered to look ahead and to ask themselves what would happen as soon as that regime ran up against the first picket, as soon as it was confronted with the necessity to arrest and fine somebody for defiance of the consequential provisions. In other words, we were being urged to behave much like Mussolini would have been inclined to behave 40 years ago. The Government of the day withstood all this pressure. They turned the other cheek to all the abuse and patiently sat down with the other partners. In this connection I must give credit to two former Ministers in particular, Deputy Ryan and Deputy O'Leary; they worked very long hours to secure that agreement on which rest a large number of the favourable indicators which we now see. Another Government are getting the benefit of this and, no doubt, they will claim credit. I do not whinge or complain about that because that is what politics is about. I suppose we may have got the benefit of certain matters when we came into office, but I think I am entitled to put on record the fact that one of the very important factors in producing the happy state of affairs which the Minister emphasised a few minutes ago was the achievement of the Government which I served in obtaining a reasonable national wage settlement.
I wish this Government the same success; but whether they will have the same success in persuading the people that what looked like unconditional promises of tax concessions were not, in fact, unconditional but were conditional on the achievement of a moderate wage settlement, is much more problematical. Certainly I do not wish them success in that. It is bad enough to have been the victim of misrepresentation, but to wish a person success in concealing his misrepresentation afterwards is superhuman virtue which I do not possess.
Córas Tráchtála cannot be praised highly enough. Their achievements in the large scale are documented by the debates here in this House and by their own report. I have had a few dealings with them personally in the last few years and I cannot speak highly enough of the impression they made on me with regard to the thoroughness and willingness to invest immense quantities of expertise and efforts in tracing potential markets. There were one or two occasions during the time we were in Government when privately and as an ordinary individual I wrote to them and suggested that products which I had observed were not in common use on the Continent but which were in very common use here might be the subject of an export effort. I could not describe to the House the trouble Córas Tráchtála went to in order to check that possibility and document it. I am sure it had nothing to do with the fact that I was a TD; I am sure they would have given the same attention to anybody else. I compliment them on their public relations on the small scale as well as on their very conspicuous achievements on the large scale.
The report mentions a relatively new undertaking, the Irish Export Agency that was established in late 1975. It is a division of Córas Tráchtála and it has the job of securing orders on a commission basis for Irish exporters in distant markets in the Far East and in the Middle East. This service has yielded a modest amount of sales in its first year—about £1,250,000—but it is only starting. My information is that Irish exporters, who may be in a large way of business by Irish standards but are in a very small way of business by world standards, have much appreciated this new service and they have made profitable use of it. The suggestion which I have heard made by authoritative people is that it might be a good thing if the operations of this division of Córas Tráchtála were extended to cover markets that are not so far distant as the Far East but which are still a little out of touch. It might cover markets which may come within the EEC in the near future, or may already be in the EEC, but where the Irish export effort has been somewhat halting, where it has not been as successful as it has been in the nearer continental countries.
To make the thing concrete. I have heard the suggestion made that in Italy the Irish exporting effort has not been as confident and as effective as in France or in Germany. It is somewhat more distant, the distribution systems and the way they do things in Italy are somewhat different and the relative unfamiliarity and distance of the terrain make it a relatively daunting prospect for Irish exporters. I pass on this suggestion, which I got from authoritative sources—that Córas Tráchtála might consider extending the operation of this division to cover markets which are not geographically so distant, which are big markets. The Italian market is a very big market. I might also add to Italy the three countries which are potential members of the Community, which looks like being enlarged in the near future, Spain, Portugal and Greece. The very same considerations which I mentioned in regard to Italy will apply there. They are just that bit further away, geographically, than Britain, France or Germany and their way of doing things is just that bit more unfamiliar. It may be that Córas Tráchtála would consider that the possibility of extending the Agency's operations into Europe, even into the EEC or prospective members of the EEC, might be fruitful.
I notice also in their report that they admit that the efforts that they have made in Eastern Europe have been a disappointment. I should like to read two paragraphs from the report which state:
The Board continues to be disappointed with progress, or lack of it, in Eastern Europe, except for Poland and Yugoslavia where reasonable headway has been made. Exporters and Córas Tráchtála staff have worked very hard in that area but their efforts have been largely unrewarded considering the results to date. The return on Córas Tráchtála resources deployed towards Eastern Europe allied to individual firms' activities there, is less than proportionate to what has been accomplished elsewhere.
Eastern European markets accounted for only 0.72 per cent of total Irish exports, with a value of £13.5 million, in 1976. The board takes the view that evidence of a commercial nature is required to justify the continuation of our promotional efforts in Eastern Europe. If future commercial results are not satisfactory, we shall have no alternative but to deploy our resources elsewhere.
That is very frank language and I am glad that Córas Tráchtála and other State bodies will use frank language like that when it is needed. I am sure the Minister will agree with me about this, because I heard him say some fairly sharp things about our diplomatic relations with Eastern Europe when he was in Opposition. It seems to me a pity that, at the very moment when we have established a couple of resident missions in Eastern Europe and have established other diplomatic relations on a non-resident basis, Córas Tráchtála should be expressing disappointment with trade efforts and also talking about the possible redeployment—in other words closing down—of the offices which they have got there. They have got offices in Moscow and Warsaw.
I will not tell Córas Tráchtála their business; but in the global national picture it is a pity that just after we have gone to the trouble at very considerable expense of setting up diplomatic representations with those countries, the main purpose for which the representation was established being the improvement of trade relationships, Córas Tráchtála are more or less prepared to throw their hats at it. That is not the fault of Córas Tráchtála. The problems of selling in communist countries are quite different from the problems of selling in capitalist countries. Nobody disputes that and quite separate considerations apply. It seems to me a sad thing that it should be so.
The Eastern European countries with which we have got relations were very keen that these relations should be established. The initiative in this regard by no means came from us— as I am sure the Minister, who was in Government at the time when decisions in principle were taken, will agree. The value for the USSR or Czechoslovakia in having a representation in Dublin is of a quite different kind from the motive we might have in maintaining representation in Moscow. We are not there to present a front for the capitalist or democratic world. We may do that in a minuscule way but that is not our purpose. If it were, we would make ourselves ridiculous by attempting to carry it out. A small country like this cannot do anything of that scale, least of all in a country where communications are so rigidly controlled as they are in Russia.
It is problematical what the Irish Embassy in Moscow can achieve but as a gesture of anxiety to smooth détente and relations in the European world and the world generally the thing probably has a certain value. The purpose of an Eastern European representation here is quite different, as can be seen from the enormous contrast—to which the Minister drew attention when he was is Opposition—between the size of the mission which is maintained in one capital compared with the mission maintained in the other. The personnel attached to the USSR Embassy here is ten or twelve times larger than the personnel attached to our Embassy there. Their purposes are of a quite different order. I need not explore them; it would be an impertinence and a discourtesy to do so. They are in no way dependent on the achievement of a beneficial trade relationship. I have no doubt that even if the trade imbalance vis-à-vis the USSR were entirely in our favour the USSR Embassy would still be there with exactly the same personnel.
When I was Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach I replied a few times to questions, the most recent occasion being October, 1976, about trade balance between us and the USSR and other European countries. The thing was unsatisfactory with all of them. There may have been one or two years when by accident we had a favourable trade relationship with one or two of those countries. Our trade relationship with Eastern Europe is, by and large, very disappointing, as Córas Tráchtála say. I have the figures here which I gave in answer to a question from the Minister, when he was in Opposition in October, 1976, which showed an immense imbalance. There were a couple of years, notably 1975, in which the imbalance was not so bad; I believe this was due to a sudden wool famine in the USSR which enabled us to export very large quantities of wool there. In 1976, in the first seven or eight months about which I replied— the picture at the end of the year was no different—the imbalance was immense. Between January and August, 1976 the imports from the USSR were £13,857,000 and our exports there had not even reached the £1 million mark. That is a very serious imbalance. I have no authority to say this, as I have not consulted my party leader or Foreign Affairs spokesman about mentioning it: but personally I believe that where the main purpose from our point of view of representation in Eastern Europe has been so grossly disappointing, notwithstanding frequent prodding, we ought to review our diplomatic representation in that area in the same way that Córas Tráchtála are thinking of reviewing their commercial representation there. I will say no more about it than that, because it is not my responsibility. I feel I have to that extent in this particular matter, if on few others, a sympathetic ear across the way, and I do not think the Minister will differ from me in echoing the disappointment of Córas Tráchtála that matters should be as they are.
The last thing I want to say has a bearing on the relatively new dimension which Córas Tráchtála have developed in regard to their contribution towards our development aid effort. It is associated with a group which carries the name DEVCO. It makes its skills available to the developing world through this umbrella. It is a very good thing that the semi-State bodies have responded so enthusiastically to the suggestion of setting up an umbrella agency which would channel their skills and expertise into the developing world. It seems a peculiarly appropriate thing for Ireland because we had been a developing country— and measured by many standards still are—and we had to pull ourselves up by our own bootlaces. We are now in a position to teach to the people of other countries many of the things we learned, in the development of hydro-electricity, bog development, foreign marketing, the attraction of foreign industrial investment and the operation of customs free zones. The efforts of the semi-State bodies in that regard cannot be too highly praised.
To some extent this is an area of potential relief for our unemployment problem, certainly at the white collar level. People are rushing through secondary school and into university looking for degrees in business management, commerce, accountancy and disciplines of that kind. We know that they cannot all be absorbed in Ireland, and unless we apply a rigorous system of entry to the universities many of these people will be very disappointed young adults and no conceivable amount of economic growth will provide enough jobs for them. The potential for a good and rewarding career in the developing world under the umbrella of the semi-State bodies such as CTT is something we ought consciously to take into account in our planning for the reduction in the overall unemployment picture and for the reduction of the potential unemployment in this white collar area. I join the Minister in commending the Bill to the House.
