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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 23 Nov 1978

Vol. 309 No. 10

Adjournment Debate. - Siting of Smelter.

Deputy Tully has received permission to raise on the adjournment the subject matter of Question No. 304 on the Order Paper concerning the proposed siting of the proposed lead and zinc smelter.

I am not in the habit of asking questions on the adjournment because when the House has finished its business most people want to get away. Therefore, it is with great reluctance that I have raised this matter this evening. I have done it for a number of reasons, the main reason being that I am interested in finding out certain things about the selection of the site. I submitted my question on last Wednesday week and in some mysterious way it took from 12.00 noon on Wednesday until six minutes after 11 o'clock on the following Monday morning to move from one side of the corridor in Leinster House to the other. Had it reached the other side of the corridor six minutes earlier the question would have been answered by the Minister or the Minister of State last week in the normal way. When I found that something had happened I let the matter rest for two or three days and then I explained what had happened in the House and asked the Ceann Comhairle for permission to raise it by way of private notice question. The Ceann Comhairle said he would request that this be done and he informed me later the request had been refused. Having gone as far as I could to try to accommodate the Department I felt there was only one way by which to get an answer to my question and that was by raising it on the Adjournment. If I did not get a reply this evening I would not get it until next February or March, the way questions are going.

There are two mines in Navan, one is in operation and the other will, I hope, be in operation in the not too distant future. There is a good deal of employment and there is a great deal of technical work. There is also a great deal of unemployment in the area, in east Meath and in Central Meath and into County Louth. It was hoped that a smelter, which was a condition on which the agreement was made, would be established and go into operation in 1981. It was hoped the smelter would be in or around Navan, somewhere in the area, providing employment itself and providing employment in spin-off industries sited in the area as well. There had been certain negotiations and subsequently one company, together with the IDA, carried out a detailed examination of all potential sites to decide where the smelter should be sited. That was a rather unusual procedure. Having examined 27 or 37 sites, Ballylongford on the Limerick-Kerry border was eventually decided on. In Meath three sites were examined. The strange thing is Meath County Council were not informed the examination was taking place and were not consulted, and neither was the development officer. This may appear commonplace to some but to me it appears a very remarkable decision because the only people who would know all about the sites in the area would be the local authority and the development officer. But they were not consulted. Not alone that but they were not told what the sites were or if any sites were being examined. They were told nothing. The situation was similar in Louth.

This was a high-handed decision and many wondered what was happening. We discovered later a decision had been made to site the smelter in Ballylongford and the decision was announced in what presumably the Minister would consider the appropriate place. It was announced in his address to the annual general meeting of Limerick City Fianna Fáil Comhairle Ceanntair on Friday, 5 May 1978. He gave the meeting the great news that the smelter was to be sited in Ballylongford and the IDA had been instructed to apply to the county council for permission. This is all rather extraordinary. The Government and the Minister could not by a miracle take the ore bodily out of Navan and set it down in Kerry or Limerick and so they decided to do the next best thing. The decided they would take the weight of the jobs out of the area. Having made this announcement, the Minister said at the end that no one should think the final decision had been taken, or words to that effect, and there might be other matters which would come up and Ballylongford was not, in fact, so far ahead of the other areas and there were areas that might be considered better.

I think the general idea being spread at the time, which some people, particularly the Minister's supporters in County Meath, swallowed for a while but, after a while, decided it was not good enough, was that this was a dirty industry and one which would have to be sited away somewhere else and, if you wanted to site a dirty industry where better than down in Ballylongford in County Kerry? Now the type of smelter, and the Minister mentioned this in his address, was an electrolytic process which is not a dirty industry and so there was no need to put it away out in the wilds. Secondly, it is a smelter which deals only with zinc. The element of lead involved is about one-fifth of the element of zinc and at present prices it would not be worth while processing the lead. Even if the vertical retort type of smelter was put into operation it is claimed the new version is much cleaner. There is also, of course, the element of cost involved, the cost of the electricity being used. An enormous amount of electricity will be used and the cost of it has a bearing on the type of smelter. I am sure this is being taken into consideration but I cannot understand why it should be decided to mine ore in Navan, turn it into concentrates, thereby reducing substantially the amount of material being handled, and then bring it across the whole country a couple of hundred miles down to County Kerry for final processing. Assuming the concentrates would be carried by rail there would have to be a considerable length of additional rail laid in Kerry to bring the concentrates to the proposed site.

Reference was made to the fact that Ballylongford is on the Shannon, a deep sea port. There is an excellent port within 16 miles of the mine in Drogheda. There is already a rail running into Drogheda and only a very short addition would be needed to extend it to the docks. If a deep sea port were required, and I do not believe it is, we know there is one relatively close to the mine, Green-ore. For the life of me I cannot understand why it is proposed to bring the product of the Navan mine over 200 miles to County Kerry. In my opinion—I could be wrong and I hope the Minister will correct me if I am—the object appears to be to provide jobs there for roughly 500 people with the smelter itself plus the spin-off industries which will now be sited in Kerry rather than in Meath or Louth. I think that is the idea and, if it is the idea, I can only describe the decision as both petty and mean and one that should not have been taken by the Minister. The amount of ore involved is very big. I understand that the smelter will have a capacity of 120,000 tons and will cost roughly £120 million.

The next problem is, who will provide the smelter? Are the Government and the IDA limiting the number of firms who would be interested in the smelter instead of saying to them that we want a smelter quickly? The people involved in the survey have literally pulled out of the job and they are not interested in doing it. I am quite sure many other companies are interested. Will the Minister when he is replying say whether he or the IDA have consulted with the many firms concerned to know if they have any interest in it? Are the two hefty mining giants involved in this interested in doing something in relation to providing a smelter?

I do not like the idea of some group doing a survey about which nobody knows anything, and on foot of that the Minister deciding to instruct the IDA to apply for planning permission on some property which is not even owned by the IDA. I am told that a substantial amount of road must be erected into the site and this will add additional costs. For that reason it seems as if somebody had not the best interests of the country at heart when the decision was made. The decision was made to site the smelter at a certain place without regard to any other costs and it did not matter if that decision ultimately put back the erection of the smelter for a considerable number of years. This is one of our biggest complaints about this.

As I asked in the question, why was it decided to site the proposed lead and zinc smelter in Kerry instead of in Meath? What proposed sites in Meath were examined by the IDA before the decision was made? I would also like to know if a cost analysis was carried out, and if it was, the result of it. There is no reason why it should not be possible to have an answer to those. If the Minister looks back at the way in which this was handled and the way in which this decision was announced he will agree that it seems that the decision was taken wrongly for the wrong reasons.

This is not a question of a party political issue. The Navan Urban Council on which the Minister's party is represented and the Meath County Council requested that this matter be looked into because they were not satisfied that the decision was in the best interests of the people they and I represent.

Apparently, the Deputy put down a question on this matter which did not reach the Dáil office or my Department until after the deadline had passed. Accordingly the question could not be replied to before my series of questions had expired, but a draft reply has been prepared since, which says——

I have it. The Ceann Comhairle asked permission to have that reply given two days ago at the end of Question Time.

I was not asked to take it as a Private Notice Question at all, I was asked to take oral questions out of order, which is not fair to other Ministers or Deputies.

I was told that the Minister was.

The reply is that the decision to apply for planning permission for the proposed zinc smelter at Ballylongford, County Kerry was made following a comprehensive evaluation of 16 potential sites throughout the country. The consultants found that the Ballylongford site met the requirements for a zinc smelter to a greater degree than any of the other sites considered. Two representative sites in County Meath which were considered to meet the minimum requirements for a zinc smelter were included in the study.

I got the figure three from the IDA.

I have the list that they looked at and it says two. The reply continues that a full cost evaluation including transportation costs involving the use of the various sites was carried out and formed part of the overall study.

I will briefly go through some of the history and background to this matter. The New Jersey Zinc Company, an American company selected by my predecessor to operate the smelter commenced studying the project in April 1977. They engaged Kaiser Engineers of the USA to advise on the technical and economic aspects including site selection. That study was completed in February 1978. Kaiser Engineers were assisted by the IDA. The IDA regional managers sought the views of county councils with a view to identifying the most suitable representative sites. Kaiser also consulted with organisations such as CIE, the ESB, the IIRS and various shipping firms. They engaged Irish consultants and had extensive discussions with local representatives. Sixteen possible sites were identified, two of them in County Meath. Kaiser then carried out a comprehensive evaluation of each site under the headings of cost, operational factors and facilities, demography and aesthetics, and environmental. Each head was broken into subheadings and rankings were accorded to each site. The key requirements for a suitable site were cost, including the sensitivity of cost to further expansion, proximity to a suitable harbour, to rail facilities and to a power station, labour availability and suitability from an environmental point of view.

Kaiser found that the Ballylongford site met its requirements to a greater extent than any other. Ballylongford received the highest aggregate marking on a combination of aspects. It is neither desirable nor possible for me to set out the merits or demerits of all the sites evaluated but Ballylongford scored well particularly on the question of proximity to major power facilities, deepwater harbour possibilities, effluent disposal and ground and foundation conditions.

As the Deputy said, the Meath sites offered transportation savings, but other cost areas including transmission line construction, development cost for berthing facilities, site development costs and so on combined to outweigh the savings on transport. Kaiser's evaluation was thorough and comprehensive. It was independently based on the company's criteria assisted by considerable local guidance. It is clearly desirable in the national interests that some particular site should be reserved for a smelter. There are good possibilities for siting near this site zinc using industries for which the harbour facilities concerned are a real and positive attraction.

After consultation with the IDA I therefore insturcted them to seek planning permission in respect of this site. I authorised them to acquire whatever extra land was needed. We were fortunate that they owned most of the land involved and they are in the process of acquiring the balance necessary.

The Deputy made the point that this decision was announced first in Limerick at a Limerick City Fianna Fáil Comhairle Ceantair. It would not have mattered where I was that night, I would have announced it. The location of the smelter is immaterial to me because I regret to say that it has no bearing on my constituency because as far as I can estimate the site is more than 42 miles from the nearest point of my constituency, but I suppose it is not immaterial to people like Deputy Spring. I presume therefore that Deputy Tully in raising the matter this evening is doing so purely on a personal basis and not as a matter of Labour Party policy.

I am sure Deputy Spring will be as angry with me as the Fianna Fáil supporters in Navan were with the Minister when he made the decision.

The situation I was faced with in the earlier part of the year was due to the arrangement made with New Jersey Zinc and their suddenly pulling out of the proposed arrangements. Because of this there was a delay of close to a year which might otherwise have been avoided. That meant that the provision of a smelter for which necessarily a good deal of forward planning must go on, was put back a year longer than it need have been. After the departure of New Jersey Zinc from the scene and their statement to me that they were no longer interested, I felt it was necessary to make a decision at an early date to try to get ahead with this matter, particularly as at that stage we were without any private sector interest in it.

Having consulted the IDA I made that decision and I think it was the right one. Having gone to a great deal of expense, as the IDA did because they partly funded this study by Kaiser to get a very detailed evaluation of sites all over the country, one was not likely to disregard the site which was indicated by the consultants concerned as the most favourable. As I said, it is immaterial to me where the smelter is sited as long as we are getting on with the job, something that was done in the past. If this job had been tackled in earlier days we might not be faced with the prospect of several years of exports of concentrates.

What has the Minister got on with?

From the point of view of this country, it would be better if we were not exporting but rather processing into metal, with all the advantages of considerable added value.

The Minister did nothing since New Jersey Zinc pulled out.

Is the Deputy complaining about what I did?

The Dáil adjourned at 5.25 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 28 November 1978.

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