I listened last evening to the lamentations of Deputy Lyons. I shall make my lamentations, too, but I shall not require two hours to do so. On the Adjournment last evening I was contrasting the lack of help given in the Border region with the help given to the Cork region. Nobody living along the Border doubts that we are the under-privileged area of this country and that we have been so for the past 17 years. We have borne the brunt of the Ulster troubles on behalf of the Irish nation and have had no compensation good, bad, or indifferent from any Government in the recent past, my own included.
The area I represent has virtually withered to economic extinction. It is a question of how much more we can take. The biggest town in Ireland, Dundalk, has practically ground to a halt. In the past 18 months we have had closure after closure. Dundalk was, for many years, the home of the footwear industry. At one time over 1,500 people were employed in this industry which is now virtually extinct. In 1985 we saw the closure of Clark's factory, an industry which has helped sustain Dundalk for over 40 years and which at one time employed 1,200 workers. Today there are less than 300 workers in the remnants of the footwear industry in Dundalk. That has been a terrible blow to the town, allied to the continuing demise of other industries in the town. Last year we lost a concern that had been in business in the town for at least 150 years. We had six closures last year. The only people who are active in Dundalk are the receivers and their staffs who occupy the best hotels in the town. That has been the tale of woe that began with the Ulster troubles and was helped along by the dubbing of the name "El Paso" on my town by an irresponsible English journalist out to get a catchy headline.
The same could be said of most of the towns along the Border. Have the Government any policy in relation to the Border areas? These areas were clearly identified in the 1984 report of the European Economic and Social Council who identified the Border regions as being among the most under privileged in Europe. Something must be done to help those areas. One of our problems is the lack of a lobby, and a lack of involvement at cabinet level. We have not a high profile in the Border region and I believe that there is a tacit belief at Cabinet level that, because of the Ulster troubles, the Border region is expendable. Nobody has ever actually said that, but I believe that is the reality. If that is so, it is an awful indictment of successive Governments. The pendulum of deprivation that 20 years ago pointed in the direction of the west has today swung towards the northeast.
My county is the smallest county in Ireland with the two largest urban centres, Dundalk with a population of 30,000, and Drogheda with a population of 26,000. Those areas have borne the brunt of the Ulster troubles. We have lofty crusades carried out in the media and we have the Anglo-Irish Agreement which reads very well, but we have no practical help for an area that has been devastated by the awful atrocities that have happened in Ulster. My town has withered to economic extinction. There are over 4,000 people unemployed in Dundalk. In Ardee there are over 1,200 people unemployed, an even higher percentage per head of population. Nothing has been done.
Yesterday evening I had to listen to Deputy Lyons shedding tears on behalf of his area. I wonder did he ever come to the Border. Not many people do. Nobody goes home through Dundalk. Therefore, the deprivation and economic hardship felt there is not seen on one's journey home. Whatever money is available, if it does not go to Dublin, it goes to Cork, Galway, Waterford or Limerick. The area which is in desperate need of help has been neglected shamefully over the past 17 years to such an extent that perhaps the people in the Border region might be better on the other side of it, given the economic advantages of living across the Border. Indeed, the moneys to bolster and help business people in their endeavours to create industry are available.
To give an example, this week I had a young man in Dublin seeking help to establish a hotel in the Border area. He was offered virtually peanuts by way of help from the Irish Government, while across the Border over £400,000, 33 per cent of his entire need, was available for him to build a hotel in the Six Counties. That is the scenario along the Border. Indeed, there is poaching from across the Border by Ledu and some of the other industries that have been set up to help create employment in the North. Inducements are being offered to South of Ireland business people living along the Border route to transfer their place of business to the North where the advantages as compared to here are unbelievable. We have the same situation in Dundalk and in other Border areas. South of Ireland retail businessmen are going across the Border to try to catch a share of the large harvest of South of Ireland trippers who are going across the Border daily. One County Louth firm has actually purchased a hotel in County Armagh. Several Dundalk shopkeepers have purchased shops in Newry because they cannot continue in the deprived and crippled town of Dundalk.
You may think, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, that I am over-stating the problem. I am not. The scene in Dundalk beggars description. Until last Christmas the shopkeepers of Dundalk, some of whom could not pay the rates, have had to witness cavalcades of buses, cars, pony and traps and so on going through the town of Dundalk on their way to the Border. We have had closure after closure of petrol stations. It is impossible to sell petrol in the Border region and two national companies engaged in the petrol business have closed down their outlets in the Border region. I have been told by many small petrol retailers that people ask for 50p worth of petrol to get them to the Border. How can business survive in that area?
In the townland of Carrigasticken, South Armagh, between Forkhill and Dundalk, a new village has emerged. In an area where there was not even one shop we now have three petrol stations, an off-licence, a shoe shop and a grocer's. This village has emerged in this quiet backwater as a result of this Government's policies and their crippling rates of excise and other duties. The business people in Dundalk are finding it impossible to remain in business because of unfair competition. Over the past few years tour operators have been running tours from every hamlet in Ireland, from as far away as Cork and Kerry to the North. Again, the Government stood idly by and did nothing.
We have no definite border policy. We do not have any policy which would bolster industry or economic activity during these very difficult years. We have borne the brunt of the troubles in the North of Ireland and no compensation was paid whereas across the Border the British Government have pumped money into the Border towns to alleviate the troubles. Community halls, leisure centres, a swimming pool in Newry, libraries and various other public amenities have been provided by the British Government which helped to cushion the effects of the atrocities perpetrated by the IRA and the UDA. There are buses leaving Dundalk to bring people to the swimming pool in Newry because we do not have such facilities in our town. We have sweet Fanny Adams.
I cannot help but contrast the help given to Cork in the recent past and the extent of their lobby in Dáil Éireann with what is happening in Dundalk. While Cork people have had difficulties recently, over the past 20 years many new industries were set up there through sheer political expediency. It was a question of asking people in what part of Cork they wanted the factory built. This happened because of the powerful lobby in Cork, the fact that a previous Taoiseach and a present eminent man in this Government live in Cork, and that they returned ten Deputies. It is shameful for any Government to ignore what has happened in the Border regions.
Time is running out for the 24th Dáil. This is the fourth year I had to stand here and relate virtually the same story. The reality is that in Dundalk there are more people employed in the public sector than there are in manufacturing industry. That is a sad fact of life in 1986 when one remembers that in the last century Dundalk led the field in manufacturing activity. In the past four years I have itemised the need for help in that area, but I am beginning to despair that anyone will ever listen to me. Drogheda was promised money more than a year ago to help lift two wharves out of the river Boyne. Outside of the port of Dublin, Drogheda has the greatest freight activity and two wharves have subsided into the Boyne. This is a great impediment to trade. As I said, we were promised money more than a year ago but it has not materialised. Meanwhile the two wharves are still in the Boyne.
Clogher Head is the third most important fishing village in the country and people have been waiting for more than 100 years for a new harbour. There are 31 fishing vessels fishing out of Clogher Head, but there is only room to accommodate 17 vessels, with the result that 13 boats have to drop their catch in Howth and the catch is credited to the port they enter. The Red Sail fishing factory in Clogher Head employs more than 100 people and, if the long promised harbour was provided, they could double their workforce. Clogher Head has been visited by seven or eight Ministers. They have all come, looked around and come back to Dublin, but nothing was done. The existing harbour was built by the British and it has subsided, with part of it lying in the sea. There is a crying need for help for Clogher Head and I call on the Government to do something for that area.
In Ardee, there is virtually no hope for the unemployed. Despite the efforts of the IDA, nobody has been willing to set up a business in that area where more than 1,200 people are unemployed. Recently a ray of hope was given to the people there. A local businessman bought the Castleguard factory which at one time employed many people. His plan is to open cluster units for skilled young entrepreneurs. I hope some State aid will be forthcoming for this venture.
Dundalk is the biggest town in Ireland, but there has been no economic movement of any kind there, and it is still not designated as a disadvantaged area. I find this incredible. Some years ago when the north Louth region was buoyant, the adjoining counties of Monaghan and Cavan were deservedly made disadvantaged areas. They took advantage of that, but now the pendulum has swung to such an extent that they have prospered through the creation of rural co-operative movements. In Cavan and Monaghan there are many buoyant, vibrant co-operative movements and yet my area has not been made a disadvantaged area. I find that almost impossible to believe.
Are the Government not aware of the deprivation in that area? Can they not see the advantages of making that an area for which a special task force could be created? In my four years here I have asked continually for the creation of a special task force for the Border region as was given to Cork. Within the IDA, Dundalk is the very last port of call for any visiting industrialist. Why should that be so? Why should visiting industrialists be taken to the more glamorous regions such as Galway and various cities and Dundalk be left last? At times industrialists are not even brought to Dundalk. That is incomprehensible.
I want to refer to what I regard as a shocking waste of public money in the Border region. Road blocks are part and parcel of everyday life in Dundalk and other parts along the Border, but I want to refer specifically to Dundalk. We are very conscious and fearful in the Border region of the security threat posed to the Border areas by the continuing unrest and the new source of unrest in the North posed by the Protestant paramilitaries. We will probably be the first port of call. If a terrible event such as a bombing were to occur, it would be most likely be in Dundalk as happened in 1972. However, we must witness the spectacle of these road-blocks being set up on the Newry road and in the past six months the Irish Army have been withdrawn from these road-blocks and are nowhere to be seen. They have been replaced by the Garda Síochána. I am very thankful for a certain amount of surveillance in the area but I think it a shocking waste of money and of the resources of the Garda Síochána. The Irish Army are not over-burdened in their daily routine——