I am very appreciative of your facilitating my colleagues and myself in making a number of queries regarding today's announcement. It is naturally a source of pleasure and encouragement to any right thinking person — including everybody in the House — when a project appears to be about to fulfil significant job expectations, when we are talking about a successful enterprise in which there will be significant, genuine and permanent employment.
Our enthusiasm and our pleasure would have been greater if we had been able to get all the pertinent and relevant facts without resorting to this debate. The purpose of my asking to raise the matter on the Adjournment is not in any way to dampen enthusiasm for the project or, to be frank, not to be over hasty in endorsing something, the contents of which we do not know. I wish to ask for elaboration in regard to some very important details. To give an idea of the farcical way some of us believe this House is managed, I and a couple of my colleagues had to go to the tailend of a press conference, hover outside the door and meekly ask for a copy of the press kit in order to get a gleaning of what this announcement was about.
I know it is not reasonable to expect the Government or a Minister to come into this House every time an announcement is expected about grant aid but this project has been developing for the best part of two years and it was hailed today as the biggest private investment in Ireland. There were attempts to get information on the Order of Business and by way of Private Notice Question over the last couple of days. The matter should at least have merited some presentation of facts, even in the Library, so that we would have had reasonable access to information.
We note with great interest the outline details published today regarding an investment of £260 million in the meat industry in a project being undertaken by Anglo-Irish Beef Processors Limited, Dundalk. The only information I have is that given to me by the press. There are two documents, one is a piece on public relations about the company — more power to them — which is irrelevant to the question of State expenditure. The other is a two and a half page press release from the Minister's office which essentially gives one figure in relation to State commitment of investment. It says that there is a £25 million grant from the IDA. However, the investment in total appears to be in the region of £260 million. I want to ascertain precisely the exact composition of the total State liability, the exact degree of commitment, present and ongoing, by State and semi-State agencies, the exact composition of all the liabilities to which the State is now exposed and a clinical statement of investment by the company which will lead to a reasoned evaluation of the degree of State commitment.
We will have other days and other ways to talk about the extraordinary situation where TDs had to go outside this House to get the facts. The outline indications are that this project is welcome and that is the spirit of our contribution. However, our welcome is qualified by those major questions to which there have been no answers and on which the Government should make a clear statement. The central question is in regard to the total cost of investment, its exact shape, including the role of the semi-State agencies involved. For example, it appears that the IDA will make a grant of £25 million to the company in respect of processing facilities. The exact liability of the State is not clear in relation to the balance of the grant-aid, including the balance of a commitment, which I understand the IDA are making above and beyond the sum of £25 million.
What is the exact level of State investment other than through grants? What is the exact level of State investment through grants? From where is it coming? Are the ACC involved and, if so, to what degree? How precisely are they involved and for how long? Are there arrangements in this package which amount to interest free loans from State agencies other than the IDA? Is there any shareholding by a State agency, for example, ACC? If so, what are the conditions, liabilities and implications of that shareholding? What is the return on share arrangements? Most pertinently, when one analyses the full equation, what is the cost per job created? What exact number of new jobs will be created?
In other words to what extent is this a degree of buttressing existing jobs, a perfectly laudable exercise in itself? Are we talking about temporary jobs in the context of new employment being created and to what extent are we talking about net, additional jobs realistically projected and expected, not hypothetically, speculatively or widely projected? Why specifically is this investment in the meat industry going to Anglo-Irish Beef Processors Limited, Dundalk? I do not begrudge it to them but I should like to know why they were chosen. Other areas of the meat industry which need development and investment have been expressing a desire to expand and yet appear to be unable to obtain any degree of sympathetic State response by means of investment?
We regret, the lack of clarity and forthrightness in the announcement and indeed, the somewhat unprecedented if not unique press conference called literally within yards of this House when Deputies could not get the minimal information on the deal. Anybody could walk in off the street and listen to the Taoiseach giving facts which we were unable to obtain. Unfortunately these matters militate against giving the warmest possible welcome that one would usually wish to give to a major new project. Recent experience has taught us all that these fundamental questions should be asked and answered fully in the context of any presentation of this nature. We sought, therefore, to raise these questions and a number of others in this way tonight precisely because it is in the public interest to have all the facts on the table.
It might be worth while in future, in view of recent experience, and in particular the incredibly shoddy treatment meted out to workers in the Hyster Company, to make public some element of the feasibility study on which the IDA make their judgments — not the confidential, key material graphs in the context of competitive internal matters, but the broad plan on which one could base a judgment as to whether good decisions were being made. Perhaps that should be made public in future rather than a two line or two paragraph statement that the IDA are grant-aiding. Those points are important.
Mention of the IDA leads me to say that it is wrong for us to be negative about them. We cannot have it both ways. When they do a good job we in this House are the first to claim credit and to cut the ribbons, but when there is a problem we are quick to blame them. I have no doubt that like any institution they are not perfect. There was a suggestion during the week by Deputy Bruton that the board of the IDA were threatening to resign and that people were unhappy about the degree of expedition attached to this project. The Government could have asked the IDA to work a little longer, late into the night, or to burn a little midnight oil in coming to a conclusion. If some degree of undue pressure was brought to bear on the IDA — and I have no evidence whatever to suggest there was; indeed any gleanings I have are to the contrary — such as would prejudice the proper decision making process, that would be certainly repugnant to us. If it is simply a question of expediting without damaging the critical factors of the process, we are all for that.
Could the Minister capitalise the degree of investment the IDA are making, including the tax breaks? I gather from something said today that the IDA's statement of investment being at about £25 million is probably worth twice that when one includes tax breaks. Are there FEOGA grants involved here and, if so, how many? In broad terms that is the essence of it.
In general terms we applaud and welcome the apparent energy which this Minister of State is taking to his role in Government. This is the first opportunity we have had to express sincere good wishes to him. We have noted that his comments have been forthright and frank. We hope that will continue and that the sense of urgency which clearly has been assigned by him to the development of this project will also continue. However, I sincerely ask him to consider whether evaluation of projects in this area — whether they be in the industrial or commercial area, or any other area of job creation should be such as to allow the public generally and this House in particular to draw reasonable conclusions.
We have recently had some problems, putting it charitably. I ask the Minister — if he wants, he need not answer me tonight — whether he would consider the suggestion of including in future, in the announcement of decisions relating to grant-aid, accompanying documentation as I hinted earlier which would give some glimmer of the business plan which had been the subject of approval. I am not asking for the internal market research of a company on which they spent hundreds of thousands of pounds, or for some internal document to damage their profitability or their competitiveness. Would it not be a help in the evaluation of industrial projects and job creation projects generally if we had a broader range of factors on which to make a judgment than simply the bottom line statement that grant-aid has been approved. That might be a good discipline for us all.
In broad terms on the basis of what we now know, this project looks like coming to fruition and it would be unchivalrous and begrudging if one did not put on record some degree of admiration for the quite extraordinary commercial and entrepreneurial flair of Mr. Goodman and all his workers who have taken a very front line approach in developing this very important industry. To him and all his workers who make the factories turn, we send our good wishes and congratulations and our hope that this will give even greater targets, greater profits and greater returns for everybody in those companies. The enthusiasm and warmth are nevertheless slightly qualified by the problems presented in the context of that very simplistic statement today.
When we get these pronouncements in future I hope we will not have to forage for the data or scurry off somewhere to get copies of press releases which, by and large, are factual but nevertheless quite limited and also have a particular purpose, which is to put the very best gloss on things. We are not fighting that business. We are in the business of making critical evaluations and seeing both sides. I hope both sides measure up in this case, as they appear to. I am not totally happy with the presentation of the facts and think they gild the lily more than just a little. I would appreciate it if the Minister could respond.
Could my colleague, Deputy Cullen, who has a long-time interest in this area of the industry and who has been pressing to get some data in this area also, with your permission be allowed to speak for a few moments to add one or two points?
