Vol. 370 No. 5
asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce in view of the continuing job losses during the last four years in manufacturing industry and consequent job losses in the service sector, if he will indicate his proposals, if any, to redress the situation.
31.
asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce given the forecast by the IDA the employment in manufacturing industry will continue to fall in 1986, following a net loss of 5,800 manufacturing jobs in 1985, if he considers that the crisis in the manufacturing industry is of the gravest proportions and that output in industry must be increased as a matter of urgency; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
(Limerick East): I propose to take Questions Nos. 28 and 31 together.
I do not accept that there is a crisis in manufacturing industry. Recent figures released by the Central Statistics Office indicate an easing of the trend of the decline in manufacturing employment. Output continues to grow although it is too early to estimate precisely how large that growth will be in the current year.
The Government's strategy for industrial development is set out in the White Paper on Industrial Policy, which was published in July 1984. The principal elements of the strategy are:
(a) increasing emphasis to be placed on the development of indigenous industry;
(b) greater inter-industry linkages between foreign-owned and indigenous industry;
(c) the continued attraction of projects from overseas, particularly those projects performing key business functions here;
(d) the creation of more new small industries under the IDA small industries programme which has now been fully regionalised; and
(e) a shift in State support from fixed asset investment to export marketing development and technology acquisition.
A number of initiatives have been taken to implement the Government strategy including the introduction of the technology acquisition grants, employment grants for small industry, the company development approach, the national linkage programme and the establishment of the National Development Corporation. The aim is to promote a stronger industrial base which will lead to a growth in employment in industry and also, as a consequence, in the services sector. In 1985 these policies succeeded in creating 12,000 first time jobs. The target for 1986 is 13,000 first time jobs.
The Minister has indicated that in his view there is no crisis as far as the manufacturing industry and jobs are concerned. Will he not agree that, given that for the three years 1983, 1984 and 1985 we had 1,151 closures, 1,738 liquidations and 413 receiverships and for the first six months of 1986 we had 384 liquidations and 58 receiverships and the Central Bank indicate a decline of 1.5 per cent in the numbers at work, investment in industry having fallen by 3 per cent annually over the past four years must be a huge factor in the crisis I contend we have in the manufacturing and services sector?
(Limerick East): No; I do not agree that the statistics outlined by the Deputy——
They are the Minister's own figures.
(Limerick East):——on bankruptcies and liquidations are correctly related to either the weakness or strength of manufacturing industry. If the Deputy got equivalent figures for bankruptcies and liquidations for the USA he would find that, over a period of very strong growth in the economy, they are phenomenally high also.
Some fine day I might have something to do with the American economy. In the meantime I will do the best I can here at home. Will the Minister not accept that the growth in industrial production has dropped by 2.5 per cent while jobs in industry have fallen by, on average, 3.7 per cent? Will he not agree that the flight of capital out of this country is a huge factor in this?
(Limerick East): I do not agree that there is a flight of capital out of this country. With the UK alone we are involved in trade now in day to day movements which annualised amount to about £8 billion. Therefore, normal trade movements of money explain what the Deputy has alluded to as a flight of capital. On his figures for the reduction of jobs in manufacturing industry, first, as he is aware, over the past four or five years, and even longer, there has been a tremendous movement towards automation and that has resulted in job losses in existing manufacturing industrial plants but, as well as that, there is a reclassification of the statistics the Deputy may not be aware of. The practice in manufacturing firms now, not only in Ireland but in Europe and the US, is to be involved solely in the main business they are about of producing the particular product. Services such as distribution, catering, cleaning and security, which were previously in-house and which statistically were recorded as jobs in manufacturing industry, have now moved out of the plant and are coming in under the statistics for the service industries. The Deputy will find there is an increase in the number of people involved in the service industries. I suggest what he is looking at is a reclassification of statistics rather than a decline in manufacturing industry.
I have no doubt the Minister and his Government are deft hands at manipulating statistics and obviously the Minister is trying the same stunt here now——
A question.
——of manipulating figures. I suggest to him——
(Limerick East): I am not going to accept that.
Not manipulating but interpreting them and twisting them about.
(Limerick East): I am not interpreting the figures. I have pointed out that the practice in manufacturing industry now is to concentrate on their primary objective and that other functions which were traditionally in manufacturing industry are being contracted out. Caterers are being brought in from the outside; they are not in house. Security people are being brought in from the outside quite frequently; they are not in house. Distribution frequently is not in house at the moment. Consequently what was previously a job in manufacturing industry is now a job in the service industries, but it is still there. I am simply informing the Deputy of what the situation is. I am not putting any cast or colour on what is happening. I am just telling him what is happening on the ground.
On that basis I wish to ask the Minister what juggling he can do with the current figure of those unemployed at nearly 300,000. Surely those figures arise from the drop in production in industrial activity and the drop in investment in industrial activity. Is the Minister saying there are not, as I indicated, these drops in manufacturing industry and the service industries? How then does he explain nearly 300,000 people unemployed?
(Limerick East): With the growth in our population alone and the number of school leavers looking for jobs, we have to run twice as fast as our immediate neighbours if we are to stand still.
I move now to Question No. 29.
A short question. In view of the startling figures that we are aware of and the Minister's indication of the number of young people coming on the labour market, what proposals has he to redress the situation that we find ourselves in?
Ceist 29.
