Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 10 Nov 1983

Vol. 345 No. 10

Adjournment Debate. - Clondalkin (Dublin) Paper Mills.

Mr. S. Walsh

I thank the Chair for having allowed me to raise this matter on the Adjournment. We endeavoured to have the matter raised during the week but you had a number of other requests. Deputies Gene Fitzgerald, Harney, Lenihan and Lemass tried to have a Private Notice Question on the Clondalkin Paper Mills today but for your own reasons you saw fit to refuse the request.

This matter has been raised many times in the House and I feel sad that I have to raise it now, because this week members of the former staff of the mills went on hunger strike. I should like to make their position clear because some hard words have been spoken about those men which were entirely unfair. Those men have gone about their campaign in a fair and reasonable way and it is unfair that they should have been classed as irresponsible, unreasonable people, as political maniacs.

When the mills were closed, a committee acting on behalf of the workers showed genuine interest and deep concern regarding the future of the industry. Much has been said and written about the mills. Promises were made and many commitments were given. The Minister for Energy is here this evening, but on the last occasion the matter was raised Deputy Collins, the Minister of State, when replying said Fianna Fáil had given a commitment prior to the 1982 general election but that it had been left to the Coalition Government, who came into office last November, to purchase the paper mills. Such statements are now immaterial. The paper mills are in the hands of the Government, in the ownership of the Government, and the only question that remains is whether the Government are prepared, or have the capacity or the will to re-open Clondalkin Paper Mills.

Prior to the general election last year commitments were given by Fine Gael candidates and in writing by their agents. Similar commitments were given — I do not know if any written commitments were given — by the Labour Party: the Leader of the Labour Party gave a commitment that the paper mills would be reopened. As I have said, the mills are now in the hands and the ownership of the Government. What will they do about it?

We have been told from time to time that the mills can be reopened only if some suitable client comes along, when the mills can be made a viable unit. Questions have been asked in the Dáil about the money being spent on the importation of paper, and from the figures given it must be clear to everyone that the Clondalkin mills can be a viable industry. In the past it was a powerful industry. If that could be so in the past, what is to prevent the mills from being a viable unit in the future? I make a special appeal to the Minister to reopen the mills because it is important for the sake of Clondalkin and very important for the country as a whole.

I have great admiration for Deputy Taylor as a constituency colleague — it is a pleasure to work with him — and I will recall for him and for Deputy Mac Giolla — unfortunately Deputy Skelly is not here — a meeting held in June 1982, when Fianna Fáil were in office. The meeting was held on a Monday in Clondalkin Community Centre. As a Fianna Fáil Deputy for the constituency I had to listen to very hard words about why the mills had not been re-opened from the time Fianna Fáil had taken office the previous February. I recall Deputy Taylor making a statement that night that if the Government had made a commitment prior to the election they had a duty to honour it. I can recall Deputy Skelly, straight from his victory in the Dublin West by-election, waving a beautiful file in front of him and saying: "My vote in the Dublin West by-election must be taken as the voice of the people of Dublin West in opposition to the Government for not honouring their commitment". Deputy Skelly went on to say: "I am the person to keep the pressure on the Government to have Clondalkin Paper Mills re-opened". Where is he this evening? Now is the time to keep the pressure on. He has a duty, as a Deputy in the majority party in the Government, to ensure that the mills will be re-opened.

It is unfortunate that the Clondalkin workers have had to go on hunger strike, or have seen fit to do so. It is a sad situation. Following the last general election a Government commitment was given to the Congress of Trade Unions that any commitment by Fianna Fáil would be honoured by the incoming Government, and I now appeal to the Minister to look at the situation in the interests of everybody concerned. As I have said, if the mills were viable in the past they can be made viable in the future.

We learn from reports in the newspapers and on the radio today that a meeting was held with the former workers yesterday which ended without a result. I say to the Minister that it is not too late to re-open these discussions and I make a special appeal to him in the interests of everybody concerned that these premises be re-opened for paper making. All the skills and experience of the members of the former staff in Clondalkin can be utilised for that end.

Miss Harney

I thank Deputy Walsh for allowing me a few moments to contribute. If I can finish my remarks in time I will allow other Deputies from my constituency to speak. Last week we discussed the need for Deputies to be given an increase in their salaries and in the meantime it has been very difficult to explain the reason for it. It will be very difficult now to explain to our constituents why prior to elections commitments are given which are not worth the paper they were written on. The electorate want honesty in their politicians. They want the truth to be told in time.

Last year the Government and the Minister now in the House gave a commitment to buy the Clondalkin plant but they did not give a commitment to re-open it. I do not want to get into an argument, but to my knowledge a sum of £1.75 million was paid for the plant and a decision made to leave it there. What kind of sense does that make? What kind of Government have we got if they continue to spend money in this irresponsible way? I have no doubt, and neither have the workers of Clondalkin or the community in general, that when that commitment was given it was a commitment to re-open the paper mills. It is not my word alone which should be taken for it. The Minister for the Environment, in a letter to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions last February said:

I am sure you are pleased that, following my intervention and the intervention of the Labour Party, the discussions in relation to the Clondalkin Ppaer Mills have now been brought to a satisfactory end.

A satisfactory end is not simply buying the plant; it is to begin production and to have the workers back at work. It is highly irresponsible of the Government, particularly the Minister for Industry and Energy, to try to pretend that the commitment given was nothing more than to buy a plant. That is not what the Irish Congress of Trade Unions understood or, indeed, the workers or, obviously, the Minister for the Environment understood.

I am very sad that three young men with young families have decided to go on hunger strike. I do not support the idea of hunger strike and I am sorry they are on it. For their sakes I hope they come off it because they will do irreperable damage to their health. I can fully understand, from working with those people over the last two years, the dilemma they find themselves in. They are beginning to wonder if the word of any politician is worth anything anymore. They would have preferred to be told two years ago that the mills would not open rather than to be kept on a string all this time. It is almost two years since approximately 400 people were put out of their jobs in Clondalkin. My party defended the need for a paper making industry in Clondalkin, not because we want to support white elephants or lame ducks but because we saw that paper making in Ireland, a small island country, is a very strategic industry which can and should be viable.

I consider the behaviour of the Minister and the Government an absolute disgrace. On the one hand they say "We bought the plant but we will only open it if it is viable". On the other hand they tell us that it cannot be viable, that it only has a 20 per cent chance, after spending £8 million, of being viable. It is either viable or it is not viable. There is no such thing as "It might be viable and we will only buy it if it is viable". That kind of use of words does not mean anything and is very dishonest. I would prefer the Minister to tell the workers the truth now rather than to pretend that the Government are serious about these negotiations.

Several thousand pound of taxpayers' money has been lost to the Exchequer in the form of PRSI contributions from the workers and the amount of unemployment benefit and redundancy payments which these people have received from the Exchequer. I have not got the figures but I hope to have them for the debate next week. Vast sums of money have also been spent, with the IDA trotting all over the world trying to find a buyer. If we are not serious about our commitment to the workers of Clondalkin let the IDA stop spending money trotting around the globe, to Canada one week and England the next, in so-called negotiations with serious people who are interested in the paper-making industry. That is not the way a Government should operate and it is not the way the people of Clondalkin want to see the Clondalkin Paper Mills issue being handled.

The commitment was clear. It was to buy the plant and begin production and 200 people were to have their jobs back. I, together with my colleagues in Fianna Fáil, want the Minister and the Government to honour that commitment and to stand up honestly and say that they did not simply buy a plant in order to keep some people happy. Did the Government buy it in order to keep the Labour Party happy and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions happy? If they did I doubt if the Congress will ever be happy with any commitments from this Government again.

Mr. Taylor

I am grateful to my constituency colleagues for allowing me time to say a few brief words on this, although the first thing I have to do is to point out that condemnation of the Government on this issue should not be confined to this Government. It has to be pointed out that the previous Minister for Industry and Energy, Deputy Reynolds, gave a commitment at a meeting at which I was present, which he followed up by a written comitment, to have this mill re-opened by 9 June 1982. He was then Minister for Industry and Energy and 9 June 1982 came and went. July, August, September, October and November came and went and he was still Minister for Industry and Energy. The Fianna Fáil Government were in power all that time.

Mr. Gene Fitzgerald

That is very poor if that is all the Deputy has to say.

Mr. Taylor

Will the Deputy take his medicine when it comes to him? Fianna Fáil had until November 1982, while they were in Government, to re-open the Clondalkin Paper Mills but they failed to do so.

Having said that, I want to add my words in support of my constituency colleagues in urging the Minister who now has the power and has control of this issue to ensure that the Clondalkin Paper Mills is re-opened. I believe that in the national context it is a viable project and that it is inappropriate to look at this issue in the narrow confines of one company. The only thing that has made paper-making in this country non-viable, if that is what it is, is the policy of having our energy costs the highest in Europe. Paper making is quite viable in Germany, Norway, Canada and other countries. It can be equally viable here if the conditions which apply in other countries are applied here.

It appears that a firm of Canadian businessmen are prepared to sink £1 million of their money into this project. They are not casual speculators. I understand that those people are paper people and are in the paper business. They know the paper business. Surely if they are prepared to put £1 million of their money into this they know what they are about. There must be a future in it and they must have a proposal that can prove viable, that can produced profits for them and for the Government, who are a participating partner in it. It would produce paper for the country that would save us imports and give us an improvement in the foreign exchange situation. When all the factors are taken into acount, the national issue, the use of energy we have and the workers to do it, it would be a crying shame if this fine industry was let go. If it goes this time I believe we will never again have paper-making capacity here. I beseech the Minister and the Government, with all the eloquence of my command, to get that mill opened one way or the other as soon as possible.

Mr. Mac Giolla

I want to add my voice to what other Deputies have said and I want to emphasise the point that Deputy Walsh made at the beginning in regard to the people involved. They are a most highly responsible group of people — I am sure Deputies of all parties who have met them will agree with that — and they have a deep interest in their jobs and their capacity to do this job. This extends from middle management through all grades of workers in the area. They are only taking this action out of desperation.

I ask the Minister to look at the potential viability of this mill, not in the context of whether some other company find it viable but in the context of its viability from his Department's point of view, now that he owns it, on a two-machine basis, which was proposed already. We should do this in view of the fact that every piece of paper we have in this House is imported paper which could be made in Clondalkin. I suggest that the Minister contact the Minister for Transport and suggest to him that he close down Knock Airport and opens Clondalkin Paper Mills.

Minister for Industry and Energy (Mr. J. Bruton)

As far as Clondalkin Paper Mills are concerned, I wish to stress that I have been and am most anxious to ensure that the mill would be reopened on a viable basis for papermaking. This was the reason for taking the unprecedented step of buying the mills. If the mills had been left in the hands of the receiver, they probably would not have been available for papermaking. Hence the justification for the unprecedented step of spending £1.75 million by the Government to purchase the mills. It is highly unusual that the premises of a firm that had gone out of production or was unable to continue would be purchased by the Government and that step was only taken because the Government were and are anxious to have papermaking restarted in Clondalkin on a viable basis.

Since the Government acquired the mills, the IDA have been very active in seeking promoters who would set up a viable papermaking business there. Some 120 firms throughout the world were contacted by the IDA in the period since then. Three site visits emerged from this series of contacts. One proposal was considered in detail by the IDA and negotiations are continuing with the promoters of that proposal on a revised basis. Another approach has been made to me in recent days and the IDA, at my request, are examing that matter as quickly as possible.

The Government are prepared to work to the maximum extent possible to have a viable papermaking business reopened in Clondalkin but they cannot be forced into putting taxpayers' money at risk in a project which does not have a reasonable prospect of viability. Indeed, the interests of the workers themselves would not be served by the establishment of a project that was unlikely to be viable, because the resultant employment would be short-term and unreliable.

Deputy Walsh said that it was never too late to reopen negotiations and I agree with him. In fact, negotiations are continuing on a very active basis — and I am keeping in touch daily — with the two promoters whose interests in the matter are active at present.

Deputy Harney suggested that I considered that papermaking in Clondalkin had only a 20 per cent chance of viability. That is not the case. The independent consultants hired by the IDA considered that a particular project which they were considering had only a 20 per cent chance of viability and they are pursuing a proposal with those promoters on a revised basis with a view, it is hoped, to securing a project which would have a much better chance of viability. Indeed the IDA would not be travelling around the world, to Canada in particular, in pursuit of this matter if there was not a very strong anxiety on behalf both of the IDA and the Government to have papermaking restarted in Clondalkin on a viable basis.

However, I wish to deny statements made by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions that there was a commitment by me on behalf of the Government to the reopening of Clondalkin Paper Mills regardless of commercial viability. The Congress bases this allegation of an unconditional commitment on the following statement in their press release of 26 October last:

At the conclusion of the meeting with the Minister at about 2 a.m. on the 8th February, 1983, the Congress General Secretary summed up the agreement reached with the Minister and confirmed that the commitment extended not only to the purchase of the mills but also to the commitment entered into by its predecessor by letter of 16th November, 1982.

The material facts in regard to this allegation are as follows. I was not at the meeting in question at 2 a.m. on 8 February and hence could not have given the commitment which Congress say I gave. I did attend a meeting with members of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions on 7 February at about 7.30 p.m. This was before the Government meeting to decide the matter finally had taken place and, at that meeting, I gave no commitment that the Government decision to be taken would go beyond the purchase of the mills. I did not meet the Irish Congress of Trade Unions after the Government decision to purchase the assets on either the 7 or 8 February. All meetings, after agreement had been reached, were conducted by officials on 8 February. I say this having carefully checked the documentary evidence in the Department in regard to this matter. As I have said, the only meeting I have had with the Congress of Trade Unions was on the evening of 7 February prior to any agreement being reached.

I have carefully studied the contemporary official minutes of that meeting. No commitment of the kind suggested by Congress was made by me at that meeting. In fact, I specifically raised the question of the economics of the mill. A representative of the Congress of Trade Unions is recorded as saying that he did not wish to discuss the economics at that stage.

Towards the conclusion of the meeting, I am also recorded as having said that hard decisions would have to be taken in the future about Clondalkin if the mill premises were to be acquired. This clearly implied that there was no automatic progress to reopening the mill, regardless of other factors. In regard to the meeting at 2 a.m., not attended by me but by officials, I have checked with the officials concerned and they have assured me — and I fully accept their assurance — that no commitment of the kind claimed by Congress was given by them at that meeting either. In fact, official minutes show that at a subsequent meeting at 1 p.m. on 8 February, when the precise terms of the press announcement were being drafted, Congress pressed to have included in the press announcement a commitment in relation to the reopening of the mill. This was resisted by the official side and the press statement was issued without any such commitment being included. This can be seen from the text of the press statement.

Congress seek to rely on the fact that the commitments of the previous Government were mentioned in the press release and during the discussions as somehow suggesting that these commitments were all accepted by the present Government. There is no foundation for this, either in the proceedings of the meetings in question or in the press release issued subsequently and agreed by Congress.

The relevant passage from the press release is as follows:

The Government have considered the commitments given by the previous Government to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions in regard to Clondalkin Paper Mills, and the consequent industrial relations aspects of the situation as represented to the Government by Congress. In view of this, the Government have confirmed the previous Government's decision to purchase the mill for £1.75m with vacant possession.

This clearly shows that the Government, in deciding to purchase the mill, were going no further than that. It also shows that the commitment of the previous Government was but one of the factors considered in that decision. The other factor was the industrial relations situation.

I am putting these points on record so that no one will be in any doubt where this Government stand in regard to commitments in this matter. It would be entirely wrong for anyone to take a course of action based on a false perception of what the Government actually committed themselves to. Those who propagate a false impression of what the Government were actually committed to contribute to a worsening of the situation.

I wish to stress that I am and will continue to be most anxious to ensure that the mill will be reopened on a viable basis and I am bending all my efforts, in conjunction with the IDA and in consultation with those promoters who have contacted me recently, to ensure that a viable papermaking operation can be reopened in Clondalkin. These efforts will continue one way or the other, regardless of pressure from any quarter. We will not be pushed one way or the other by pressure of any kind. It is our intention to seek to have a viable papermaking operation established in Clondalkin.

The Dáil adjourned at 5.30 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 15 November 1983.