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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 14 Dec 1983

Vol. 346 No. 10

Fóir Teoranta (Amendment) Bill, 1983: Committee and Final Stages.

Section 1 agreed to.
SECTION 2.
Question proposed: "That section 2 stand part of the Bill".

This is the section which proposes to increase the number of directors from seven to nine. The Minister has acknowledged that these two directors will be nominated by himself from officials from the Department of Finance and the Department of Industry and Energy. We will have two civil servants appointed to the board. I am not by any means reassured by the Minister's attempt at reassurance. I want to go back now to the reasons why the board was constituted as it was and the reasons which were relevant then are even more relevant now. They were supported by both sides of the House. Let me quote Deputy Cooney at column 2213 of Volume 256:

...I found that the approach adopted in Dublin was too conservative and too bureaucratic — I do not use the words in a pejorative sense — and enough cognisance was not taken of the problems on the ground so to speak.

At column 2215 he said:

I do not know how the Minister is going to constitute the new board. As he indicated, up to now the board has been comprised of civil servants — the secretaries of four Departments. Without any disrespect to the gentlemen on the present board, people of wider commercial experience would be required. I think the Minister should consider as members of this board people who are prepared to experiment in matters of industrial management, who are willing to get away from the traditional management philosophies we have in this country and which we have had to import from differently structured societies because of the size of our country and the average size of firms.

That is the general vein in which Deputy Cooney spoke.

Deputy Tulley, who represented the radical Left, spoke in precisely the same vein in welcoming what the late Deputy George Colley was doing, particularly in relation to changing the constitution of the new board from what was regarded as a Civil Service-dominated board. He said: "Deputy Cooney used the word `conservative' in respect of the State companies but I would put the word "ultra" before that. The ultra-conservative approach of some of the people in these companies has a dampening effect on firms seeking assistance, but perhaps that is the intention". Again, at column 2222, talking of the need to react quickly to small industries and businesses, he said:

This must be spelled out very clearly because I can see a group of people, and particularly civil servants, saying to a firm with 25 to 30 workers that they are only little chaps, that they do not qualify, and the Minister says so.

Those few extracts make the point. First of all, whether or not the civil servants on the board would attempt to do what Deputy Tully feared they would or what Deputy Cooney was apprehensive about, if they are perceived by the people who are determined to make the effort and are entitled to some reward in the almost impossible climate in which they operate as an administrative bureaucratic control on behalf of the Minister, then that will be in effect what they are and no assurance by the Minister introducing this unwelcome change——

The Deputy did it himself.

I did not. Check the record. I know this Government do not think too highly of Cabinet confidentiality. As Deputy Cluskey put it, they have drawn back the curtains. I presume what the Minister is talking about are discussions that may have taken place, informally or otherwise, between officials of the Department and me as Minister for Finance. Is that what the Minister is at? This is sinking to a new low. Whatever confidential discussions took place the test is, and the Minister must know it, the conclusion I came to at the end of the day. This does not embarrass me one bit. I discussed many things which the Minister in fact subsequently did, but the test is I did not do that. Check the record. That is the first point.

The cold and clammy hand of Finance.

There used to be in that Department a lively element of economic planning and development. I know it is still within the capacity of those committed public servants to discharge that role but their chances of activating any economic development at this stage is very limited indeed.

The second reason we oppose this section, apart from all the valid arguments produced then by both sides of the House, which are equally valid today, is the determination of this Government to undermine the whole State sector in relation particularly to the constitution of the members of the board. It may not be the particular intention of this Minister but it is quite clear that those who have been appointed to these boards under a previous administration now feel a lack of confidence, a lack of security, a lack of a guarantee that they will be allowed and even encouraged——

This is the most nonsensical allegation I have heard for a long time.

The Minister will have his opportunity. If he is not aware of the apprehension that exists throughout the State's boards because of the action taken by this Government, then he is more out of touch with reality than I thought he was.

It is the Deputy who is out of touch with reality.

I am not. All of us on this side of the House, together with Deputy Yates and Deputy Dowling, acknowledge the great job these boards are doing. The Minister, allowing for the great job they are doing, now sees the need to go back the other way and wants to assure us that this is only for liaison. I am not impressed. This party are dissatisfied. In view of what the Government have done in relation to An Bord Pleanála, Údarás na Gaeltachta, Bórd na gCapall, Bórd na gCon and wherever people happen to be unfortunate enough to have been appointed by a Fianna Fáil Administration, the Coalition Government will ensure at the earliest possible date that they will either negative the impact of these undesirables, as they see it, on the State boards, or else they will find another way of doing it.

The Deputy knows very well that there were different reasons in different cases for taking those actions.

The Minister will have an opportunity to make his point. I said that, apart from the specific concern of adding two civil servants, my second point is that we are opposing the section as a matter of protest in the light of what the Government have been doing generally in respect of a whole range of bodies which are meant to be independent and autonomous. I cannot go into the arguments in relation to matters regarding the Chairman of Bord na gCon but if the Minister wants to go into each particular case I ask him this question: Did the Government, in respect of a whole range of people whom they removed, give any of those people stated reasons, as required under legislation? In many cases like An Bord Pleanála, did they bring the matter before the House, as required under legislation? They did not do either of those things and they forced honourable people, with professional qualifications in many cases, to resort to litigation to have their rights vindicated. That is why we are not prepared to allow the Government to further undermine the independence and capacity of people, who should be recognised for what they are, people of experience, commitment and interest in the development of industry. Those two very persuasive reasons are the reason why we are opposing this section.

I want to make another comment in relation to this matter. I mentioned the traditional ratio and said I had reason to believe that it would be changed in view of the problems of industry at this stage. The traditional ratio was always one-third success, one-third marginal and one-third liquidation. The Minister has now indicated that the figures have changed and that less than 40 per cent go into liquidation, 13 per cent remain all right, which is much less than it was, and 47 per cent are still marginal on the books.

They are still on the books.

Of course, but they are not launched out into profitable activity as the 13 per cent are, which used to be 33 per cent.

I am sorry to interrupt the Deputy but as a matter of fact I said 13 per cent have repaid the loans Fóir Teoranta made to them and the remaining 47 per cent are on the books. This is a matter of clarity. Of that 47 per cent there are some who are in continuing difficulty and there are some who are making payments, as in the agreed schedule of payments set out by Fóir Teoranta, and cannot necessarily be regarded as in difficulty.

I am not implying that all of the 47 per cent are in difficulty but the figures the Minister gave indicate that a greater proportion of them are going into liquidation than was the pattern, a smaller proportion of them are able to repay the loans than was the pattern, and a larger proportion of them remain on the books. They will be in the last proportion, obviously subdivisions that I do not want to go into. I know what the pattern has been over the years and the Minister will have to accept it.

In view of that kind of trend I am also worried about the understandably orthodox reaction civil servants will have in regard to applications coming before them. They will be orthodox and they will not be as sensitive to the real needs on the ground as the present Minister for Defence, Deputy Cooney, the former Deputy Tully and the late George Colley felt they should be. In view of that and the other reasons I have given, the Minister should drop this particular provision and let those boards have some degree of hope to be independent and discharge the role they have been discharging.

I would have liked to have spoken on the Second Stage of this Bill but there are a few remarks I would like to make on this section. I would like to put it on the record of the House that I would like to see the transfer of An Fóir Teoranta from the Department of Finance to the new Department of Industry, Trade, Commerce and Tourism. I hope the Minister will consider that.

This is going the other way.

I hope, seeing that CTT and the IDA are under that Minister, that the Minister will consider transferring Fóir Teoranta to that Department so that all of the difficulties which some companies are facing—some of them are in my constituency—can be considered under the umbrella of one Minister. This would help in dealing with some of the bottlenecks.

Since we have to finish this Bill by 7 o'clock I will relate my remarks to this section. With regard to the appointment of the directors I would like the Minister to make it a condition of the appointment of those directors that they widen their terms of reference to ensure that they come to the assistance of companies if the failure of those companies would worsen the situation in the eyes of the State. I have come across companies where assistance from Fóir Teoranta would have helped them to continue in business profitably but they did not find it possible to do so since their terms of reference in their view did not allow them to take into consideration the country's balance sheet. I want to get this on to the record.

The Deputy is going outside the scope of section 2.

You have given me great latitude and I am about to finish. I would like to ask the Minister to ensure that on the appointment of these directors they will agree to broaden their terms of reference to ensure that they will assist companies if it is in the interest of the country that those companies be assisted. It is quite ridiculous for directors of Fóir Teoranta to say that they cannot help companies even though it would improve the country's balance sheet because it is outside their terms of reference. I would like the Minister to take that up with the directors on their appointment. It is very important, particularly to small companies. I thank the Chair very much for his latitude. I know I wandered a bit from the section but since the debate is finishing at 7 o'clock I wanted to get what I have said on the record.

I want to say a few words about Deputy O'Kennedy's remarks. I consider he is trying to whip up a particular feeling, which is a very unconstructive way of going about this particular job. I do not think he is doing any favour for the people about whom he professes to be concerned, the people who have been looking to Fóir Teoranta for assistance, or anybody else. I am sure Deputy O'Kennedy is aware that the boards of seven of the 22 commercial State bodies have departmental representatives on them; the boards of 24 of the 36 major non-commercial State bodies have departmental representatives on them, all for very good reasons. In some cases it is because it would be nonsensical for the shareholders not to have a representative on the board, in other cases because the State in one way or another makes a major contribution to sustaining the board's operations or an investment programme of the entity concerned. It is not surprising that in those cases the State, that is the taxpayer, should have a representative there to protect that interest. Deputy O'Kennedy is equally aware that of the seven members of the IDA two are civil servants. I have not heard it said that the IDA have shown the influence of what Deputy Wilson chooses to call the cold and clammy hand.

They have it on the throat of every other Department.

Had we had a more direct link between the State and some of the boards concerned we might have avoided the kind of troubles we are dealing with now and will have to deal with in the years ahead in some of these operations. Deputy Wilson should not venture on to ice as think as that because the cold and clammy hand he might meet will come from below. I do not think that Deputy O'Kennedy intended us to conclude from his remarks that public servants have no imagination.

No, I did not. I made that clear.

He went out of his way to say that some of them have a great deal of imagination.

I am more concerned about the Minister than about the public servants.

The second point Deputy O'Kennedy made was the need of these boards to react quickly. I have not noticed that public servants as members of any of the boards we are talking about have reacted any less or more quickly than their colleague co-directors and members of those boards. A principle is involved here. This is surely an opportunistic campaign by Deputy O'Kennedy. Taiscí Stáit had a board composed solely of four secretaries of Departments and it was made clear when Fóir Teoranta took the place of Taiscí Stáit that that did not seem to have been an inappropriate arrangement. I agree fully with that, and there is no contradiction between my agreeing with that and the provision of this section of the Bill. I said clearly in my introductory speech that I did not want to create a situation where we would lose the benefit of the experience and advice of existing members of Fóir Teoranta drawn from the business community. It is extremely valuable and it is essential that it be there. For that reason I am increasing the number of members of the board rather than replacing any member of the existing board with the addition of these two.

The Minister could hardly sack them.

When Fóir Teoranta were set up and for many years up to recently the total expenditure involved in their operations was very small.

They will get more.

Now we have provided £23 million in 1983 solely from State funds and it is right that the providers of those funds should be directly represented. There is a point of view there that needs to be presented, that can legitimately be presented and that can have something to add—even in the sense of the remarks made by Deputy Mitchell—to the overall consideration of projects that come before Fóir Teoranta. I have no reason, quite the contrary, to suppose that the proposal that I am making of appointing these additional members of the board will do anything but facilitate the job of the Minister for Finance who must provide the money, and the Minister responsible for Industry, who must provide other inputs. My proposal will only facilitate the more rapid consideration of these cases and the more speedy provision of the money. Deputy Wilson should not credit everybody else with the empire-building tendency he may have himself.

If Committee Stage is to conclude at 7 p.m. I want to raise a point on sections 6 and 7.

We are dealing with section 2.

Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 78; Níl, 70.

  • Allen, Bernard.
  • Barnes, Monica.
  • Barrett, Seán.
  • Barry, Myra.
  • Barry, Peter.
  • Begley, Michael.
  • Bell, Michael.
  • Bermingham, Joe.
  • Birmingham, George Martin.
  • Bruton, John.
  • Bruton, Richard.
  • Burke, Liam.
  • Carey, Donal.
  • Cluskey, Frank.
  • Conlon, John F.
  • Connaughton, Paul.
  • Coogan, Fintan.
  • Cooney, Patrick Mark.
  • Cosgrave, Liam T.
  • Cosgrave, Michael Joe.
  • Coveney, Hugh.
  • Creed, Donal.
  • Crotty, Kieran.
  • Crowley, Frank.
  • D'Arcy, Michael.
  • Deasy, Mark Austin.
  • Desmond, Barry.
  • Desmond, Eileen.
  • Donnellan, John.
  • Dowling, Dick.
  • Doyle, Avril.
  • Doyle, Joe.
  • Dukes, Alan.
  • Durkan, Bernard J.
  • Enright, Thomas W.
  • Farrelly, John V.
  • Fennell, Nuala.
  • FitzGerald, Garret.
  • Flaherty, Mary.
  • Flanagan, Oliver J.
  • Glenn, Alice.
  • Griffin, Brendan.
  • Harte, Patrick D.
  • Hegarty, Paddy.
  • Hussey, Gemma.
  • Kavanagh, Liam.
  • Keating, Michael.
  • Kelly, John
  • Kenny, Enda.
  • L'Estrange, Gerry.
  • McCartin, Joe.
  • McGahon, Brendan
  • McGinley, Dinny.
  • McLoughlin, Frank.
  • Manning, Maurice.
  • Mitchell, Gay.
  • Mitchell, Jim.
  • Molony, David.
  • Moynihan, Michael.
  • Naughten, Liam.
  • Nealon, Ted.
  • Noonan, Michael. (Limerick East).
  • O'Brien, Fergus.
  • O'Brien, Willie.
  • O'Leary, Michael
  • O'Sullivan, Toddy.
  • Owen, Nora.
  • Pattison, Séamus
  • Prendergast, Frank.
  • Ryan, John.
  • Shatter, Alan
  • Sheehan, Patrick Joseph.
  • Skelly, Liam.
  • Spring, Dick
  • Taylor, Mervyn.
  • Taylor-Quinn, Madeline.
  • Timmins, Godfrey.
  • Yates, Ivan.

Níl

  • Ahern, Bertie.
  • Ahern, Michael.
  • Aylward, Liam.
  • Brady, Vincent.
  • Brennan, Mattie.
  • Brennan, Paudge.
  • Brennan, Séamus.
  • Briscoe, Ben.
  • Browne, John.
  • Burke, Raphael P.
  • Byrne, Hugh.
  • Byrne, Seán.
  • Calleary, Seán.
  • Collins, Gerard.
  • Conaghan, Hugh.
  • Connolly, Ger.
  • Coughlan, Cathal Seán.
  • Cowen, Bernard.
  • Daly, Brendan.
  • Fahey, Francis.
  • Fahey, Jackie.
  • Faulkner, Pádraig.
  • Fitzgerald, Gene.
  • Fitzgerald, Liam Joseph.
  • Fitzsimons, Jim.
  • Flynn, Pádraig.
  • Foley, Denis.
  • Gallagher, Denis.
  • Gallagher, Pat Cope.
  • Geoghegan-Quinn, Máire.
  • Harney, Mary.
  • Haughey, Charles J.
  • Hilliard, Colm.
  • Hyland, Liam.
  • Kirk, Séamus.
  • Kitt, Michael.
  • Barrett, Michael.
  • Barrett, Sylvester.
  • Brady, Gerard.
  • Lemass, Eileen.
  • Lenihan, Brian.
  • Leonard, Jimmy.
  • Leonard, Tom.
  • Leyden, Terry.
  • Lyons, Denis.
  • McCarthy, Seán.
  • McEllistrim, Tom.
  • MacSharry, Ray.
  • Molloy, Robert.
  • Morley, P.J.
  • Moynihan, Donal.
  • Nolan, M.J.
  • Noonan, Michael J. (Limerick West).
  • O'Dea, William.
  • O'Hanlon, Rory.
  • O'Keeffe, Edmond.
  • O'Kennedy, Michael.
  • O'Leary, John.
  • O'Malley, Desmond J.
  • Ormonde, Donal.
  • O'Rourke, Mary.
  • Power, Paddy.
  • Treacy, Noel.
  • Tunney, Jim.
  • Wallace, Dan.
  • Walsh, Joe.
  • Walsh, Seán.
  • Wilson, John P.
  • Woods, Michael.
  • Woods, Michael.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Barrett(Dún Laoghaire) and Taylor; Níl, Deputies B. Ahern and Briscoe.
Question declared carried.
Section 2 agreed to.
Question, "That the Bill be agreed to in Committee, reported to the House and passed" put and agreed to.
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