Vol. 379 No. 10
asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if it is the policy of his Department that areas of Dublin, with unemployment rates significantly above the national average, should be designated as priority areas with regard to the location of new industries; if he will make an order under section 4 of the Industrial Development Act, 1986, to this effect; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
17.
asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will designate the Portlaw area of County Wexford, where there is massive unemployment, as a region deserving of a higher rate of grant for industrial development.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 6 and 17 together.
I would refer the Deputies to my reply to Question No. 127 by Deputy Ivan Yates on 16 February 1988 in which I indicated that I was still considering what changes, if any, might be appropriate to the system of designating areas for higher level capital grant assistance taking into account the reports prepared by the NESC and ESRI and the changed economic situation including the need to get the best value for Exchequer resources.
I find the Minister's reply very disappointing. There are other sources of information as well as the NESC and ESRI and I am sure the Minister has that information available to him already. Is the Minister aware of the recent report on employment and unemployment in the Dublin area by the Dublin Business Innovation Centre, and is he aware that in this report there is a clear indication that, even at the time of the boom in the ten years from 1971 to 1981, 14,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in Dublin at a time when 37,000 were gained in the rest of the country? In subsequent years the losses in Dublin increased enormously. Surely, if the Minister takes that into account, he will realise that the existing policy is deliberately depriving Dublin of jobs and that now Dublin has reached the stage of being the major unemployment area in the country? Would the Minister take that into account in arranging his priorities in the designation of areas for priority?
As a Dublin Deputy myself I am also concerned about unemployment in Dublin city and county. I should say that nationally the unemployment situation is softening somewhat and, indeed, improving.
I would not trumpet that too much considering they are all going elsewhere.
The designated areas system——
They are emigrating.
I have the figures if the Deputy wants to put down a question on that. We have the emigration figures too and there is a clear improvement in the trends but a question would, no doubt, allow us to debate that.
I want to tell Deputy Mac Giolla that the NESC report recommended that designation should be confined, for example, to areas covering at most 25 per cent of the national labour force and reviewed every five years. The ESRI were then requested to determine the areas to be designated under the ESRI formula. All I can tell the House today is that this whole area is being looked at at this very time by the Government. As the Deputy is aware, the maximum grant in designated areas is 60 per cent and in nondesignated areas 45 per cent, although the average grant in those areas has come up to nothing like those figures. The Government are very actively in the middle of a review of that designated area structure.
Does the ESRI report, which the Minister has in his possession, recommend on the basis of the NESC critera that either Dublin, the subject matter of Deputy Mac Giolla's question, or Waterford, the subject matter of Deputy Deasy's question, should be designated?
I cannot enter into specifics because the Government are right now actively involved in a review of both the NESC and the ESRI comments and a review of the whole structure.
I merely asked a factual question.
Arising out of the Minister's earlier reply in which he said an area that includes less than 25 per cent of the labour force——
That is the NESC proposal.
I would ask the Minister, in looking at Dublin, to look at different areas. First, Dublin may refer to the inner city which is obviously a deprived area that requires designation. Would the Minister also look at other separate areas such as what are known as the new towns of Tallaght, Clondalkin, Lucan and Blanchardstown which have enormous unemployment rates at the moment, probably higher than any other area in the country.
I will certainly undertake to do that. This whole question of designation is one which one has to be careful about. If we were to designate half the country, or three quarters of it, or all of it, we might as well not have the scheme but just class Ireland as a designated area. One has to be careful about rolling out the designated areas schemes because that could become counter-productive. I accept that the Deputy is worried about the Dublin area. I should mention that an extension of the designated areas in regard to urban renewal for areas of Dublin, such as Tallaght, and Limerick was announced at the time of the Finance Bill and that has been extended up to 1991. That will help somewhat in the Dublin city area, as will the financial centre development. A lot of very good work has been undertaken by local communities throughout Dublin city and county which I would like to applaud.
