asked the Minister for Finance (a) the amount of money indicated or committed to the Designated Trust Fund for investment in industry during the years 1984 and 1985 to date; and (b) the number, if any, of industrial projects which have been aided by the fund in 1984 and 1985 to date.
Ceisteanna — Questions. Oral Answers. - Designated Trust Fund.
8.
Funds designated under section 27 of the Finance Act, 1984, have invested £445,000 in six industrial projects in 1984-85 and £430,000 in four industrial projects in 1985-86. The figures for the latter year do not take account of the sum of £750,000 which the promoters of a recently designated fund have indicated they propose to raise for investment during the current year in about six projects.
Would the Minister agree, as his figures indicate, that the Designated Trust Fund has not attracted more commitment or more money in the area of the creation of industrial jobs and will he not agree also that despite the introduction of recent legislation to remove some of the barbed wire restrictions that applied to that fund, there is no improvement? Will the Minister not agree that the fund is so unacceptable as not to be capable of providing funds for industry and that this being the case he must accept that the suggestions made by me during the debate and accepted by his colleague, the Minister for Industry, Trade, Commerce and Tourism as worthy of consideration, were worthy of this Minister's consideration also? Because of the limited success of this fund, will the Minister remove more of these barbed wire restrictions in order to encourage more money into the fund and consequently to encourage the provision of more employment?
I would not accept that at all. As I have said, in 1984-85 and for 1985-86 the sum of £875,000 has been invested by funds designated under section 27 of the Finance Act, 1984. That does not take account of a sum of £750,000 which promoters of another fund have indicated they propose to raise for six projects. That makes a total of £1.6 million for funds designated under the Act. The Deputy's apparent disappointment with the scheme arises from the fact that he is looking at the situation only in relation to funds designated under the Act. As he will recall, investors may, in addition to putting their money in through funds, invest directly in qualifying companies and that so far has been the most popular use of the provisions of the Act. Up to now 21 companies have been fully approved by the Revenue Commissioners as qualifying companies under the provisions of the Act and they have attracted investments of £3.9 million. A further 30 companies have been granted outline approval by the Revenue Commissioners and it is expected that they will raise some £1.7 million under the scheme. Putting those groups of companies together, we have investment commitments of around £5.6 million, and that includes investments to which I have already referred. This means that around £5.6 million of investment have qualified for the relief set out in that section.
In view of the Minister's reply——
Try to keep your question short.
The Minister indicated that £5.6 million is the total amount contributed Would he not agree — and the Ceann Comhairle will probably say I am being argumentative——
You are putting me on notice.
Would the Minister not agree that the introduction of the National Development Corporation is unnecessary even by these limited figures?
The Deputy is being wilfully argumentative.
Premeditated.
That seems to be an unrelated question. I would not for a moment share the Deputy's conclusion that we do not need the National Development Corporation simply because the business expansion scheme has been so successful.