(Limerick West): I move:
That Dáil Éireann calls on the Government to reject the application of Comhlucht Siúicre Éireann Teo., for authority to close Tuam Sugar Factory and further calls on the Government to give categoric assurance that Tuam Sugar Factory will remain an integral and permanent part of the company's operations.
It gives me pleasure to move this motion. I want to assert the complete confidence of our party in the sugar beet industry. I pledge our party's full support for its continuing nationwide operation. It is disheartening, to say the least, for all who believe in our capacity to create and innovate, to see question marks once more being raised over an operation which has served Ireland well over the past 50 years. I refer to the Irish Sugar Company, to their factory at Tuam and to the renewed speculation about it. I am also aware of the rumours and the scares about the future of the Thurles factory. These rumours seem to be deliberately promoted, and they reflect the conservative policies now being pursued in regard to Irish industry generally and in particular in regard to industry based on agriculture.
Fianna Fáil cannot permit the advocates of a two factory sugar beet industry to go unchallenged. Neither will we permit them to succeed. Fianna Fáil reject that concept totally. To countenance such would be tantamount to the winding down of an industry which has had such a dramatic impact on agriculture over five decades. In the same period it had a developmental influence on industry generally and in financial terms it was profitable as well. It is a reflection on the dearth of thinking by the present Government that growers and workers in the industry, instead of being encouraged, are being subjected to pressures for curtailment and contraction, when surely the opposite course would be in the national interest.
One has only to study the results of the latest sugar beet campaign to see how illogical and unwarranted this policy of retrenchment is, this policy of amputation. The campaign to which I refer was the best in the industry's history. Beet growers were paid almost £60 million. Nearly £20 million of that was paid to the farmers who supplied Thurles factory. A further £5 million or so was paid to the farmers who grew for Tuam. The workers in the four factories, who of course in the main are farmers' sons and daughters or their neighbours in rural towns, earned something in the region of £30 million in wages. In addition, the servicing of the industry with transport and so on gave good employment to many others.
What did the nation get? It was saved £150 million in import substitution and £100 million worth of sugar was provided to serve the needs of the island as a whole with reserves for export directly and indirectly of goods containing sugar. The by-products processed into animal feedstuffs at the factories were worth more than £20 million. In financial terms it was also a profitable operation. Since Fianna Fáil established this industry in 1933 its story has been one of success, innovation, diversification and profit.
In 1933, when Eamon de Valera, Seán Lemass and Seán MacEntee set the objective of this industry, it seemed to some people to be an in opportune time to do this. At that time the great nations of the world were in the depths of political upheaval. Millions were unemployed throughout the world. A weak Irish economy felt the bitter blast from outside and was further hurt by depressed conditions at home.
The existing privately owned sugar company in Carlow was on the point of collapse. Those deemed wise and careful at that time counselled closure. Through the mechanism of the Irish Sugar Company the then Fianna Fáil Government decided not only to buy the Carlow factory but to build three other factories as well. Who today would challenge the wisdom of their decision. Who today can calculate the value of that decision to the country and to the thousands who have benefited from that and who will continue to do so provided the Government will give the industry a chance? It was not by any accident that the late Eamon de Valera chose Tuam for the turning of the first sod for that new industry, that bold venture. The underprivileged west and the attendant problems of its people held a special place in the consideration of de Valera and of Fianna Fáil, just as it did in the case of Pádraig Pearse.
Some years ago the Archbishop of Cashel, the Most Rev. Dr. Morris, said there are few industries which illustrate the interdependence of people in a community better than the sugar beet industry. On turning the first sod for the nationalised industry at Tuam almost 50 years ago, Eamon de Valera struck the same note when he said we should see the things on which we can agree rather than things on which we differ. Later at Thurles in establishing factories such as these, he said we were making the way for a self-sufficient and a self-supporting State. De Valera had no doubts in 1933.
When I visited Tuam last May and toured the factory, I said to the workers that afternoon that, as spokesman on agriculture for Fianna Fáil, I was expressing the continued commitment of Fianna Fáil to the development of Irish agriculture and industries based on agriculture. I said then, and I repeat now, that the policy which Fianna Fáil have pursued since 1932 has had a vital impact on the economic and social fabric of rural Ireland. It has brought increased prosperity to our farmers and has provided meaningful, rewarding and real jobs for our people in their own local environment.
This party resent and reject the smears of those who now belittle our efforts. Fianna Fáil remain adamant that that same principle is the way forward. The history of the sugar beet industry is a classic vindication of our policy in this regard. The Tuam factory played and continues to play a vital and integral role in this policy. Tuam may be small by European standards and a cost factor on the overall Sugar Company operation but I am sure the House will agree that they have served the region very well.
We should not forget that during the Emergency years the Tuam factory, and the farmers who grew for it, served the national effort, sometimes producing more than other factories could. I said last May in Tuam that the factory was deliberately placed there to help in the development of the west. It was the first industry auxiliary to agriculture set up in the province. The west still has special problems, it needs the factory and a need for political support for it still remains. When Fianna Fáil located the factory there, they were not motivated by profit considerations alone although, five decades later, it can be argued that their contribution to the national effort has been considerable and more than justifies the decision made some 50 years ago.
It is Fianna Fáil policy to retain the factory and to use it as a vehicle to create a greater balance in farming patterns in the west generally. Without the Tuam factory and its various ancilliary involvements over the decades, tillage in Connacht would have all but vanished by now. What an imbalance that would have left. Its critics point to the small acreage provided for beet but the percentage under beet in Connacht, when related to tillage in general, is perhaps greater than anywhere else here. One acre committed to beet in effect commits three acres to tillage when rotational patterns are considered. This is vital to farmers in the west, especially to the provision of winter fodder in a region which can be very severe on livestock. We must never forget that the west is vitally important nationally because of the excellence of its cattle and sheep.
I repeat that Fianna Fáil will resist all attempts to deny the west the opportunity which such industry provides. Fianna Fáil set it up at a time of depression. We reject the false logic that it should be closed down at a time of economic recession. I fully acknowledge the difficulties of the Sugar Company. They have never been in a position to hold adequate funds in reserve to meet the heavy refurbishing costs which were necessary recently to modernise and expand their 50-year-old factories. Their profits, which were substantial over the years, were, of necessity, ploughed back into the building up of the industry at field level, research projects, seed and soil testing, disease control, the provision of essential limestone quarries, manufacture of farm equipment vital to our special needs and in assistance to exporting firms using sugar in their products. The State, through the Sugar Company, provided all these aids to farmers and business interests by virtue of the Fianna Fáil decision to set up the industry. No other sugar processing company had to embrace such an undertaking. In other sugar beet producing countries, the services either already existed or were provided by farmers or co-operatives. The Sugar Company did this work superbly. We have an expertise in this area of agriculture which is of tremendous value to the nation.
It must be acknowledged also that the Sugar Company undertook the development of the vegetable processing industry and financed it from their own resources. That national undertaking put a further strain on the company's finances. Economic conditions and factories with inadequate protection within the EEC framework add further to the difficulty of Ireland having, as it should, a horticultural industry capable, as the sugar industry has been, of meeting national needs and winning markets abroad.
We are now being prepared for the second closure announcement on Tuam. There are leaks almost daily to create the necessary climate. No one is under any illusion. The Government want to get rid of the Tuam factory. The Minister for Agriculture said, in reply to questions over the last couple of weeks, that only viable enterprises can be tolerated. We all subscribe to that but how do you judge viability in the context of a national industry which has a development role to play? Let nobody think that continued and intense research is no longer required in the beet industry, there is much still to be done in this regard.
Last year this party, acknowledging this, brought in legislation which strengthened greatly the Sugar Company's financial base and, though funds were scarce, we gave a substantial £30 million injection to the industry then. We did not provide that money to close down Tuam or to close down the food enterprise of Mattersons of Limerick, or East Cork Foods in Midleton. That money was provided to enable the Sugar Company to become viable in all their operations in the context of their national contribution.
Of course we envisage rationalisation in industry. Industry must change and adjust, but there is a difference between that and taxing an industry and, indeed, a way of life out of existence. If the Sugar Company are forced to close it will be only a matter of time before beet growing ceases in Connacht. At present well over 1,000 farmers are serving the one factory and some of them have been growing beet for almost 50 years. Then there is the position of workers, not all of them on the Sugar Company payroll, but in considering the growers more than 500 persons have full-time employment because of the sugar factory in Tuam. I repeat that because it is worth repeating. In considering the growers more than 500 persons have full-time employment because of the sugar factory in Tuam. That is worth considering carefully in the context of this motion and in the context of the feeble approach of the Government in their amendment, which says:
supports the Government in its efforts to secure the future of the sugar industry on a viable basis.
What are the Government's thoughts on this? Will they close the factory? If that is so no support will be given to the Government from this side of the House, considering that 500 persons have full-time employment there because of the sugar factory in Tuam.
Being conscious of these factors, Fianna Fáil reiterated their philosophy towards the sugar factory, particularly the Connacht section of it, when it became clear two years ago that the then Labour-Fine Gael Government were determined to thwart a great national enterprise because of their clouded vision of this country's future. When our party had the opportunity in Government last July we backed that philosophy with further strengthening legislation. In other words, we have consistently and deliberately over the years supported the Irish Sugar Company, particularly their operation in Tuam. We have said over and over again that the Tuam sugar factory is and must be an integral part of the whole sugar industry and we have brought in legislation and given the necessary financial support for this. We have also stated that Tuam cannot and should not be considered in isolation as this Government are doing, that the whole sugar industry and the whole Irish Sugar Company complex must be looked at together. It is patently improper for this Government to endeavour to nullify what is a legitimate national aspiration, the requirement to treat all areas of this country with equal concern, and that means assisting the less privileged regions. I have no doubt at all if the current thinking at Government level is not abandoned Thurles will most certainly come under the closure threat. Those who fly the kites for the present administration have already written off the factory in Thurles which serves the beet farmers of Waterford, Wexford, Laois, Tipperary and Kilkenny. The thinking of this Government is to close down any enterprise which is not profitable regardless of the social consequences that will have for the people of the west and more particularly for the farming community and workers associated with this factory at Tuam.
