asked the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy if he will make a statement to the House about the policy of the Government concerning the construction of a smelter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Smelter Policy.
10.
The Deputy will be aware from public statements already made that it is the Government's intention to secure the establishment at the earliest practicable date of a zinc smelter to ensure the maximum degree of processing in Ireland of our natural resources.
The IDA are at present in contract with a number of companies which have expressed interest in the project but it is too early to say what the outcome of these contacts will be. As the Deputy is aware, the IDA have applied for outline planning permission for a zinc smelter at Ballylongford, County Kerry.
Does the Minister anticipate that a final policy decision on this matter will be announced in 1979? The Minister will recall that in 1976-77 he said it was a matter of a couple of months only and the decision could be taken. He will recall also that he berated his predecessor for not taking a decision on the matter.
The Deputy will recall that my predecessor engaged a firm who subsequently decided to pull out and, unfortunately, that gave the project a major setback, to say the least of it. As well as that, zinc prices until very recently, up to the last two months, remained at an extremely poor level. I am glad to say that they have increased reasonably in the past two months but it was in that time only. I understand that one of the companies involved in the fixing of the European producer price raised its price yesterday by a further 40 US dollars a ton. Hopefully the other companies involved will follow suit. I think that will improve the situation so far as this smelter is concerned. It is also worth bearing in mind that 12 months ago it was impossible to interest anybody in this matter. I am now glad to say that we have had several inquiries over the past couple of months.
Would the Minister's estimate of the number of jobs implicit in a smelter have changed from the estimate I think I heard him give the House about a year ago, or perhaps somewhat less than that, something of the order of 400 or 500?
The number of permanent jobs is in the region of 650, almost entirely for males. Probably the number of construction jobs would be a bit higher than that for a short period but that would last a couple of years only.
Is not this the area of our natural resources in respect of which the Minister and his party said in June 1977 there were tens of thousands of secure jobs only waiting to be created?
That seems to be a different question.
Unfortunately a zinc smelter, as the Deputy is probably aware, is not built overnight.