I would like to thank you for allowing me to raise this important question on the adjournment this evening. This question is not only an important local matter but is an important national one.
It is a deplorable practice that information on important matters of this nature have to be dragged out of the Government in the House. The Irish Times reported last week that CIE had placed an order for a number of coaches with a German firm. Neither CIE nor the Minister for Transport has denied or affirmed those reports, either to The Irish Times or other newspapers, nor would they deny or confirm them to me. It is disgraceful and cowardly behaviour on the part of the Minister and his Department. At the very time unemployment has reached one-eighth of a million, we hear that a number of coaches — it is reported as 20, we do not know the exact number but I presume we can drag that out of the Minister also — are ordered to be built in Germany when they could have been built at Inchicore, where there is a tradition of coach building for well over a century. They are not being built at Inchicore because of the failure of the Government to decide on anything of a long-term nature as far as transport is concerned.
There is a long tradition of bus and rail coach building in Inchicore. Inchicore, where I was born and reared and now, happily represent, was developed around both CIE works. Every family in the area is deeply concerned by matters affecting CIE. Inchicore has already gone through the major trauma of losing the bus building industry, not because of any lack of skills, or because of anything wanting on the part of the work force, but because of the disgraceful Government decision to dispose of the bus building industry to a private enterprise firm, whose major partner was from Belgium. The net result was that it went totally wrong. Van Hool McArdle caved in after a few years, the workers were left high and dry and the bus building industry closed down, never to be brought back to Inchicore.
A new bus building industry has been created in Shannon but is lost to Inchicore, where the skills still exist, either among unemployed men or among men otherwise employed but not using those skills. Ever since losing the bus building industry, there has been deep fear in Inchicore railway works about its future. At present, in Inchicore there is deep despair and anger. The Minister has managed, on the very day that record unemployment is announced, to create, I do not know how many jobs, for Linke Hofmann Busch in Germany. We cannot totally quantify the amount of job losses there will be in Inchicore and elsewhere in CIE as a result. Fianna Fáil stated in their manifesto that they would create 10,000 new jobs from what they called import substitution. They would make a transfer of 3 per cent from imports to home produced goods. What has happened in the past four years is that we have increased imports by 2 per cent. We are now buying from the Germans what we could produce at home. We have a large work force of skilled men who are ready, willing and able to do this work. It is a disgraceful situation. It is an appalling fact that not one of the Fianna Fáil Deputies for that area has ever raised this question in the House or is present for this debate. That shows their concern for the fate of the work force in Inchicore.
Not only is there despair and anger over this terrible decision and the way in which it was dragged out of the Minister, there is fear because of the uncertainty about the future. There will be no reassurance in the reply that the Minister gave today to my question and to that of my colleague, Deputy Austin Deasy, shadow Minister for Transport. The Minister said that in the meantime he would envisage that the provision of rail coaches at Inchicore will be necessary. He uses the unusual word "provision". He does not say that the building of rail coaches is envisaged. There is a total doubt about what the Minister said. Will the Minister spell it out, loud and clear: is there a future for Inchicore works? Is the CIE proposal to recreate a new coach building industry in Inchicore under their own aegis, in association with Linke, Hofmann Busch, going to be implemented. I do not want the Minister to fob me off or to fob the work force of Inchicore off by saying he is awaiting the McKinsey Report. He has already put enough jobs on the long finger. He has put 20 coaches, which could have been manufactured here, on the long finger. The time for procrastination has long since gone. The Minister has an absolute duty to the workers at Inchicore and their families, to make the provision about the future clear. Will there or will there not be work? Will rail coaches be built there? The Minister can, as is his wont, waffle in his reply but that reply will be circulated to every worker in Inchicore within 48 hours of this debate. Let them judge whether the Minister is in the least concerned about them or their future.
A most distressing thing about this whole matter is that the Minister's word is already totally devalued. A commitment was given to the trade unions representing the Inchicore workers as part of the deal to get acceptance of the transfer of the bus building industry to Bombardier at Shannon, that there would be a rail coach building industry at Inchicore. That guarantee was given by the chairman of the CIE Board to the unions and to me personally when I headed a deputation to meet him. This was the sop to get the unions to withdraw their opposition to the removal of the bus building industry from Inchicore to Shannon. Not only that but it was guaranteed that this work would be done by CIE themselves using jigs and designs of Linke Hofmann Busch and not as previously proposed, have a rail coach building industry owned or controlled by Linke Hofmann Busch.
This is all gone now or certainly put greatly in doubt by the disclosure here today dragged from the Minister. In his reply to my supplementary questions and those of other Deputies the Minister said he was not aware that the chairman of CIE had given a commitment. I do not believe the Minister, and if it is true that he was not so aware, he should resign in any case. If he was not aware, it shows how unconcerned he is about the fate of Inchicore and its workforce.
