asked the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy his knowledge of the plans of the Response from Industry Group, the formation of which was announced in the daily newspapers of 27 May 1978
Ceisteanna—Questions . Oral Answers . - Response from Industry Group .
4.
: I have no knowledge of the plans of the Response from Industry Group apart from what has been reported in the press, nor have I anything to add to the reply which was given to a similar question on 23 May 1978.
: Is the House to take it from that, that the Minister's Department know no more about the plans of this group than the rest of us?
: That is correct. The Department are not involved directly with them.
: Is the Minister aware— I am sure he is aware—that the group's plans envisage them entering into activity of a kind for which at least two statutory bodies, namely the IDA and Fóir Teoranta, already exist? Surely their activities should be of concern to the Department?
: I would see this group as being supplementary to the work of the public agencies and, for that reason, I welcome their initiative which is a useful one.
: I do not dissent from the potential usefulness of this, but surely the Minister is making an assumption about this group on the basis of no knowledge? He has just told the House he knows nothing about them.
: On the contrary, I have informed the Deputy that what I know about them is what has been published by these people.
: If this group have not communicated with him in detail about their plans how can the Minister be sure that their work will not cut across and possibly obstruct, perhaps without meaning to do so, the work of Fóir Teoranta or the IDA?
: I do not think what they are setting out to do will cut across those agencies. They have expressed themselves in the documentation they published as being anxious to help those agencies and in no sense to pre-empt them.
: How can the Minister claim such lack of knowledge when it is alleged in the newspapers that a Senator who is a member of his parliamentary party is the secretary to this group? Does he consider it proper that the said Senator should be secretary to that group, according to the newspapers?
: That is a matter for the Senator and the group. From the names I have seen, I would speculate that various political parties are represented among the membership.
: Would the Minister consider it strange in the context that the said Senator was one of the chief fund-raisers of his party during the last general election?
: That is not a relevant question.
: It is a key question.