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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 16 Jun 1983

Vol. 343 No. 8

Estimates, 1983. - Vote 39: Labour (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:
That a sum not exceeding £110,245,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December 1983 for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Labour, including certain services administered by that Office, and for payment of certain grants-in-aid.
—(Minister for Labour).

I created a climate in which I had hoped we would see further peace but instead there has been much unrest. The Minister belongs to a party who screamed for my resignation time and again when industrial disputes were in progress. I have never called for the resignation of a Minister for Labour during an industrial dispute because I do not believe in doing so. I cannot say that the present Minister ever asked for my resignation but certain members of his party did, as well as a number of Deputies who are now Ministers, notably the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs who was Opposition spokesman at that time. On many occasions in this House and outside he screamed for my resignation, yet the Minister now says that intervention can be harmful. Circumstances are not the same in any two disputes and the apparent problem may not be the real problem. The Minister must take his own decision in relation to each dispute. He is elected in the public interest and that must always be taken into consideration. While he is guardian of the public interest he must take decisions at appropriate times. He will always have my support and will never be asked by me to resign.

I will remember that.

The screams for my resignation were loudest while delicate efforts were being made to solve disputes. They were emitted by a man who is not doing any good for himself or the image of politicians.

The Labour Court is a tremendous institution but I must add in passing that I was somewhat taken aback at some recent comments by the court in relation to a certain appointment in the west and the criticism of one or two of my colleagues. This was a little strange and unusual. I always supported the Labour Court on the industrial relations scene. They should leave the question of appointments to others. The politicians concerned offered very satisfactory explanations and I understand they were not even heard as witnesses. Having said that, I found the court to be an excellent institution and I added the fourth division during my period in office. I was concerned to assure consistency and the role of the chairman in co-ordinating the various divisions.

The conciliation service is composed of dedicated and committed people. This is a specialised area and not everybody can adjust to that role because it needs a special type of commitment and patience which is not given to everybody. For the most part the conciliation officers with whom I came in contact gave excellent service.

There are now two Ministers in this Department and there may be times when they will have to lose a night's sleep or a weekend's relaxation. They should keep their options open. I remember being told from the Labour Party benches that I was not like my predecessor, Deputy Michael O'Leary, in standing back from a strike, because he always intervened. I warn the Minister not to adopt too hard a line in what he says he will do.

I have skimmed over AnCO, CERT and the IMI. I want to praise all those concerned, the boards and councils, including the personnel, who give of their time so freely. I want to pay a tribute to the director of AnCO who retired during the year. It was he who spearheaded with the then Minister for Labour, our President today, the Industrial Training Act through this House. A few years later he assumed the role of director of that State body and helped to nurse it from being a very small organisation to being a major contributory factor in the training of youths or the retraining of youths. As AnCO developed, new horizons were reached. The Equality Acts were introduced. The role of women in society changed and training facilities for women became a major feature of AnCO. That may have slowed somewhat now because of the recession but it was a development I certainly welcomed. Jack Agnew gave years of service to the State and then moved into this State board. I thank him for his contribution and I wish him a happy retirement. He has been replaced by Malachy Sherlock and I wish him well.

There may be occasions on which there will be overlapping and times when justifiable criticism may be made against one or other of the State bodies but once their priorities are right in training and work experience they should be given every opportunity to continue the good work they are doing. With regard to adult unemployment, the age is now dropping to the late thirties and early forties. These people need retraining and they must be given every opportunity to retrain.

With reference to the protagonists referred to in that national newspaper, I dislike both the term and the inference. I believe the employment agency has difficulties. I criticise the structure of it. It is understandable that there should be problems. It was given a high profile for a very few reasons at the time and, because of that, it is wearing a mantle that may have increased the difficulties for it. I would prefer to see comment emanating on the basis of co-operation, co-ordination and developing together in the interests of youth. That is the function and purpose.

I know there is difficulty for the Minister in regard to funding. His Government have taken certain decisions. My Government took certain decisions. The levy would not be given directly to the board and I know there are people on the board who think the 1 per cent levy should go direct to them and they should have charge of its distribution. The figure mentioned is £77 million. It is a bit much to expect particularly at the beginning. The residue this year is £15 million. There is a problem here and I am sure the Minister and his junior will be looking at it. It is important when money is taken like that from workers that it should be spent in the best possible way for the development of young people. Overlapping is inevitable. It is difficult to find new programmes. Like myself I am sure the Minister has been investigating various schemes in different countries. We know what can be done. The pilot projects are very good and I hope they will increase in the future.

This vote is to conclude at 7 o'clock. There is a gentleman's agreement to that effect.

Perhaps the Minister of State would like a few minutes.

I trust my comments are constructive rather than critical. There is a great deal of work to be done in the area of industrial relations. both sides of industry should have talks and the Minister should be in close touch with the social partners.

Several meetings have been held.

That is not the indication the Minister gave in his opening statement.

In a different area.

I am talking about industrial relations. The first meeting had already been held before I left office. There is need for improved industrial relations. The injunction process is a growth concern. These are areas that must be looked at. I shall be helpful and co-operative in areas in which I can be both helpful and co-operative. A great deal can be done and the Minister can be assured of our co-operation. We will be looking forward to a very busy autumn. I would expect that with two Ministers there now. Perhaps it is too early yet but has the Minister yet decided under the State Enterprises Act what companies will be included in the extension?

I thank the Opposition spokesman for allowing me time. One of the major changes in the administration procedure which has taken place since the coming into office of this Government has been the decision to locate responsibility for youth affairs in the Department of Labour. That decision was prompted by the recognition that the single greatest problem facing young people was youth unemployment. If anybody has any doubts about that, even this very short debate this evening will show just how true that statement is. That decision involved the transfer of functions from the Department of Education to the Department of Labour. Indeed it was already the case that much of the work of the youth section in the Department of Education bordered on the employment area through the administration of the temporary employment scheme. We entered office with a commitment to regard the funding of the youth services as an area of priority. We found ourselves with the Book of Estimates before us. Deputy Fitzgerald made the point that those Estimates were published in the run-up to the election. The Estimates revealed an increase of only 1 per cent for the youth service, a figure that seemed quite inadequate given the rate of inflation to which the State had been subjected. In those circumstances, in order to comply with our commitment to regard youth services as a priority, it was necessary for us to allocate additional funding and that we did to the tune of some £550,000. That has allowed a number of initiatives to be taken. First of all, it has allowed us to move on the development officer front. Development officers who were doing very worthwhile work in a number of youth and community organisations throughout the country had been in existence for some four years and their rate of remuneration had remained unchanged at £5,000. The allocation of extra funds enabled us to increase that figure from £5,000 to £7,000 per head. In addition, it enabled us to increase very substantially the grant-aids to the existing youth organisations that had historically received support from the State. They received increases that averaged out at 18 per cent, which every Member of the House will agree was very substantial against the present economic climate. In addition it was possible for the first time in recent years for us to admit a number of new organisations into the scheme. Members of the House will welcome particularly the decision to admit An Óige and Macra na Feirme because they were organisations which had not in the first instance found their way within the scheme and had won the sympathy of all sides of this House in their efforts to secure support from the scheme. In recent years, while there has been a degree of goodwill, it was not possible to make such a decision. I am glad to say that it was possible to move this year, the decision was taken and both of those organisations received grant-aid from the youth section of the Department of Labour this year for the first time.

A number of policy decisions are imminent. The Government have a commitment, shared by the previous administration, to introduce a national award scheme to promote excellence and endeavour on the part of our young people. The necessary decisions to put that into effect have now been taken and an announcement is imminent. Equally the Government have been concerned and have expressed their commitment very specifically to the various youth organisations that a clearly defined national government youth policy would issue. Again I am happy to tell Members of the House that an announcement will be made in the very near future in that area.

There are a number of other areas both within the youth area and in the Department generally to which I would like to make reference but, given the time constraints, I will confine myself to what I have said.

The Minister said that the time for a fundamental review of Irish industrial relations is long overdue. I concur very much with that particularly in the light of what was almost a calamity in the general area where I come from, the Ballina district, where because of an industrial dispute one of the major employers, Asahi, was in imminent danger of closing. It is ironic and terribly wrong that a firm whose industrial relations are first class, with the exception of one fairly long dispute of about three weeks—their only dispute—should find themselves because of outside circumstances in danger of closing. I would like now publicly to congratulate the Ballina Trades Council for the tremendous efforts they made in the solving of this dispute and I thank the Minister for the efforts he made when he was contacted by myself and the Minister for Fisheries and Forestry on this matter. A situation should not be allowed to exist where people are quite willing to work, where the trade unionists in a factory are willing to work, and the factory finds itself almost at the point of closure.

This factory was within two days of closing for keeps because of an industrial dispute over which they had no control. When the review the Minister is talking about is undertaken consideration of that should be one of the main priorities. As a result of the dispute a number of suggestions were made. Some tribunal should be set up to take into account the special problems relating to sensitive industries like Asahi where it can take three to four days to close down the plant and perhaps three or four weeks to get it open. Here I pay tribute to the CIE drivers who gave up their dispute only because of the danger to Asahi. These men's right to strike now seems to be ended for all time and I do not think that that is right either. Therefore, people like them should also be covered by this tribunal.

That dispute was barely over before we had the dispute at Dublin docks whereby the same situation arose. In the first dispute the Marine Port and General Workers Union agreed to let the raw material, acrilonitrile, through, but in the second strike it did not get through and again there was a very clear danger of a factory whose industrial relations in its own plant were first class closing because of a dispute in another area over which it had no control. It is time that we had either a tribunal or a court which would look after sensitive industries in relation to the supply of raw material.

I am sorry that the Minister said that there will be no new centres for AnCO. Here I will be a little parochial and say that in the Ballina area we have been looking for an AnCO centre for ages. It was to be built even by private finance last year, and this would help the building industry in the Ballina area. I understand that there is a proposal with the Minister's Department for a considerable length of time, going back to when my colleague was Minister for Labour, and the decision has not finally been made. I know that private finance is available to build a new AnCO centre at Ballina and I would be grateful if the Minister would, not necessarily now but at some stage, let me know the position in relation to that. Like Deputy Fitzgerald, I congratulate AnCO for the tremendous job they have done. I have had first hand experience of the work they do and I feel that their activities should be expanded considerably.

I thank the Minister for giving me a copy of his speech before he made it. One thing he had not time to mention is something that Deputy Fitzgerald as Minister did a great deal about, and that is the question of dangerous substances. I feel from a glance through the Minister's speech that he intends to do something in the near future about this. Something should be done and the Act which Deputy Fitzgerald brought in as Minister for Labour should be reviewed in the light of the tremendous amount of substances that are now coming into the country, particularly for the new chemical industries that have been established in the last few years. The fears that people have stem from the lack of knowledge of the substances that are being carried. Again, I will mention Asahi and the amount of bad publicity they got from people who did not know what they were talking about and who had for years put up with such substances much closer to them, which made all of us in the west pretty sick. If the Dangerous Substances Act was updated and the provisions in it tightened the fears of many fire officers would be settled and the general public would not be as fearful.

With regard to the National Manpower Service, like the Minister I appeal to all employers to advertise through that service. Frankly, the feeling that many young people have is one of despondency with regard to that service. They put their names down for any type of work but do not hear anything. I am not blaming the service but any institution of State established to do a specific job should be permitted to do that work. All vacancies, including temporary Government ones, should be filled through the National Manpower Service. If that happened we would not have had the bad publicity that there has been in recent months. There is a lot more I would like to say about this Department but in view of the decision to curtail the debate and the fact that Deputy Fitzgerald has put a number of questions to the Minister I will give the remainder of the time to the Minister.

I should like to thank Members who have contributed to the debate on the Estimate. I regret that we have not had more time to debate the activities of the Department of Labour, a most important Department in view of the difficulties we are facing. It is a key economic Department and it is unfortunate that the House must rush through this Estimate in less than two hours. A number of questions have been raised by Deputies Gene Fitzgerald and Calleary. I will not be able to deal adequately with them in the short amount of time available to me but I can assure Deputies that I will deal with their queries and communicate with them on the points raised. I do not think it would be fair and reasonable to expect me in seven minutes to expand on the sizeable number of queries that were put to me.

Deputy Gene Fitzgerald asked if a National Manpower director had been appointed. That official has not been appointed. A report was commissioned by Deputy Gene Fitzgerald when he was Minister last summer but certain things have happened in the meantime that made it difficult to make the appointment. For example, we have had a transfer from the Department of Education to the Department of Labour. As the Deputy is aware, there are interests outside the Department who feel they should be considered. I do not intend to deal with this problem without taking into account the various interests and the staff consultations and negotiations that must take place. Obviously, I would prefer the appointment to be made with the full concurrence of those interested in that area. For that reason I am considering the review but I hope to be in a position in the near future to make that appointment.

One of the areas that caused some difficulty for Deputy Gene Fitzgerald was the operation of the Youth Employment Agency. He suggested that the fact that it was not properly set up in the first place caused some of the trouble and he referred to the attitudes that have grown up about it since their establishment. I must make the point that the agency have been in operation for one year. When I was reappointed to the Department I was amazed to discover that the agency had a staff of eight. That was not adequate to do. If delays occurred in operations, and do. If delays occurred in operations, and if the agency have not been able to operate in the areas they would have liked to and investigate the many projects that were piling up, one of the reasons was the lack of staff.

It is strange to hear the agency being compared to AnCO when one considers the staff complement in AnCO. The view has been expressed that the two State agencies should be performing similar functions but people who say that should read the debate in the House when the legislation establishing the Youth Employment Agency was being dealt with to understand that the body should be doing. A number of myths have developed about the agency and what they should be doing. Many think they should be creating jobs but the intention was that the agency would expand training facilities, work experience areas and, where possible, create jobs. It was the intention to extend existing institutions and that has been achieved in the AnCO area and in areas of the Departments of Labour and Education. I gave the figures earlier tonight. I have increased the staff considerably and as a result I have no doubt that the work of the agency in the future will be more effective. Projects will be undertaken and decisions made quickly.

The delay in setting up COMTEK was as a result of the staffing problem. However, a successful seminar was held in the RDS in Ballsbridge two weeks ago to deal with the proposals for COMTEK. Many agencies attended the seminar and discussed the matter in detail. I hope to see developments in this area very soon.

I am aware of the work done by Deputy Gene Fitzgerald when Minister for Labour with regard to the social fund. I have no doubt that if he was in my position in Europe two weeks ago he would not have adopted a different approach. I do not think we will fight over the social fund. As a result of the work done by the officials in my Department, those who specialise in that area, our efforts in Europe were very successful. I am happy with the work carried on in the various sections of my Department and the activities of the agencies associated with the Department. They deserve our compliments.

There may have been slight differences in the past in our approach in the field of industrial relations. I disagree with Deputy Gene Fitzgerald who suggested that there had been a serious disruption in industrial relations in recent months. That is not so and the figures are available for inspection. We have had difficulties, and we will always have them, but our active participation in the area of industrial disputes has been successful. I am anxious to ensure that every effort is made to settle disputes and there has been a personal surveillance by me of any dispute that was brought to my attention. I am pleased to say that there has been a happy outcome to almost all the disputes that I have been involved in since I returned to the Department. I hope that will continue. I disagree with the Deputy when he said that there has been a decline in the area of industrial relations since I returned to the Department.

I should like to thank Deputy Calleary, the people mentioned by him, and the Minister for the Gaeltacht, Deputy O'Toole, for their hard work in regard to the dispute at Asahi. That help was crucial. I thank them for it. I want to correct Deputy Calleary on one small item. He said that I stated in my speech that there would not be any new AnCO centres built. I said there would be a review of the situation after the completion of the present——

I said there would be none in 1983.

We want to take another look at the whole situation, see how it is going, see where the shortfall is in the various areas and see where they are most needed. It is obvious that one should review a situation after a fairly hefty burst of activity in that area and look at the gaps there are. Certainly, if Mayo is one of the areas that turn up at the top of the heap after that review, I will be only too delighted in the years to come to be able to come back in here and tell the Deputy about that.

Vote put and agreed to.
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