Vol. 410 No. 2
7 Proinsias De Rossa asked the Taoiseach if he will outline the matters discussed at his meeting with chief executives of semi-State companies regarding job creation plans; whether such companies have been instructed to stop shedding jobs; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
I refer the Deputy to the statement issued after the meeting I had on 24 June 1991 with the chairmen and chief executives of the state-sponsored bodies, copies of which were placed in the Oireachtas Liberary.
The meeting, which took place at my request, was to discuss how the Statesponsored bodies might contribute to accelerating employment under the Programme for Economic and Social Progress, particularly in the light of the fact that net outward migration has now virtually ceased. The meeting took note of major developments by individual bodies which will create extra jobs and which are detailed in the statement.
The two major conclusions of the meeting were that an expert working party consisting of representatives of the IDA, ESB, Bord Telecom, Aer Rianta, Aer Lingus, Bord na Móna and CIÉ be established to initiate a programme to manufacture in Ireland products and components which the Task Force on Employment had reported multinational companies located here were willing to source in Ireland to an estimated value of £1 billion. The first meeting of this group will take place tomorrow. The second proposal was that the bodies would establish development units, if they had not already done so, to develop new activities which could generate employment.
I shall continue to have periodic meetings with these bodies to review their progress in developing activities to create extra jobs.
I welcome the Taoiseach's initiative in bringing together the chairmen and the chief executives of the State sponsored bodies. For some time I had felt that that was an area that had been largely neglected from the point of view of job creation. When speaking to the earlier question on the task force, the Taoiseach said it was hoped that the semi-State companies could help to create the linkages between themselves and the multinationals and that it had been estimated that about 25,000 jobs could be created by fulfilling the £1 billion imports the multinational companies have at present. What is the basis for the estimate of 25,000 jobs that could be created from import substitution? How successful was the previous commitment made by semi-State companies, which arose from a meeting held between them and the Taoiseach in December 1989, that an estimated 7,000 new jobs would be created?
The estimate of 25,000 jobs was a rule of thumb. It is a calculation made by the economists and statisticans that £1 billion worth of business would create that many jobs. That is very sensible calculation. The IDA have great experience in calculating what it takes to create jobs.
It is a pity that the Taoiseach does not understand it.
Perhaps the Deputy does not understand, but the IDA can now measure——
The unemployed do not understand.
All activities and policy with regard to the IDA are directed towards keeping down the capital cost of creating jobs. I consider the estimate to be a fairly good one. To reply to the second query, the meeting in December 1989 had a fairly worth-while result. For instance, Aer Lingus alone have brought on stream three major sub-projects which will, in time, create a considerable number of jobs. Aer Rianta are also actively considering job creation prospects. The position is the same across the spectrum of semi-State bodies. The statement issued after the December 1989 meeting listed several specific job creation proposals that the semi-State bodies have on hand and most of those have been initiated since that meeting.
In the Taoiseach's meeting with the chief executives of the semi-State bodies, was there any discussion on the targets of, for example, the ESB for job shedding to reduce numbers from 13,000 to 10,000, An Post to shed 1,500 staff or Telecom for job reduction, all of which targets are set out in the programmes of those bodies? Did the Taoiseach discuss with the chief executive of Bord na Móna the issue of capital restructuring? I believe that Bord na Móna have sought from the Government on numerous occasions in the past two years a proper financial basis because the company is very heavily in debt. Would the Taoiseach consider putting some of the money from the sale of the Sugar Company and Irish Life into the recapitalisation of the semi-State industries? How many jobs does the Taoiseach expect to be created in the semi-State bodies before the end of the year?
That is a long list of questions. The Government did, of course, discuss the question of the semi-State bodies slimming down their operactions in order to become competitive, of necessity, by shedding employment. That is a fact of life, unfortunately and regrettably. Every commercial organisation is engaged in that exercise at the moment. A starting point for the discussions was that the efforts of the semi-State bodies to become more competitive and productive in their labour force were not at issue. We did direct attention to the question of whether semi-State bodies, out of their own resources and in other areas, could create new projects and new jobs in other areas, perhaps to some extent absorbing the numbers that they would shed in their core business. It is a perfectly logical and reasonable concept that a semi-State body which, by necessity and economic circumstances, has to trim its workforce and core business should, ipso facto, start searching for projects that could absorb those people. That was the basis of our discussion.
The question of the restructuring of the capital of Bord na Móna does not affect their capacity to create jobs.
It does.
In fact, I am glad to be able to say that the chairman of Bord na Móna was among the more enthusiastic members of the meeting in his approach to the extension of the activities of Bord na Móna in job creation.
Does the Taoiseach consider he is making a fool of himself making the statements he has made bearing in mind, for instance, the Government's broadcasting policy and its impact on employment in RTE where hundreds of jobs have been shed directly as a result of this misguided broadcasting policy? Will the Taoiseach agree he is making a fool of himself coming into this House speaking as he has done when Government policies are forcing job losses of 1,500 or more in An Post? Would the Taoiseach consider he is making a fool of himself speaking as he does when CIE, for instance, because they employ 10,000 to 11,000 people, pay over £30 million in PRSI while companies with bigger turnover in the private sector pay a fraction of that?
I have to dissuade Members from the notion that they may debate this matter. They may not debate the matter.
On the Question of RTE, the Deputy will probably be disappointed to hear that the chief executive of RTE who was present is equally enthusiastic for the prospects of RTE——
It is another U-turn.
If the Deputy wants to sneer and laugh at a serious subject, he is perfectly entitled to do so but I do not think that would be welcomed by the general public. The Government are seriously pursuing every possible aspect of job creation in a constructive methodical way and I want to assure the Deputy that we will not be diverted from that by sneers and unfounded allegations from that side of the House. The chief executive of RTE is quite enthusiastic about pursuing ways in related areas of creating new jobs. In fact they have a special organisation for that purpose.
I want to bring this question to finality. I will call the three Deputies who have risen, Deputies Bruton, Spring and De Rossa, to put brief questions.
In view of the Government's enthusiasm for using State resources to create new jobs, why are the Government deciding to abolish NADCORP who had quite a successful record in providing seed capital for small businesses from the public sector?
We are not abolishing NADCORP. NADCORP are being merged with the IDA, which is a very logical and sensible rationalisation measure.
NADCORP are being absorbed into the IDA where their ethos will be lost.
Deputy Bruton is now making a statement, which is not in order at Question Time?
In relation to the Taoiseach's meeting with the executives of the semi-State companies and the programmes they are following, would the Taoiseach agree that, irrespective of these meetings, the position is that at the end of the day we will be talking about containment of jobs rather than job creation? The possibility is that there will not be new jobs created by the semi-State industries who have their own agenda, as the Taoiseach has admitted, and we are talking about job containment at best.
I am sorry Deputy Spring adopts what I would say is a nonconstructive attitude to this matter. I would have expected him to be enthusiastic about the prospects of the semi-State taking on this responsibility of job creation in a major way. That is what we are trying to do and I do not think anybody in this House should try to undermine it with this sort of sneering remark.
Let us deal with the facts.
I am dealing with the facts. It is a serious exercise.
There was a photocall before the election.
Let us take Aer Lingus, for instance. Aer Lingus have three subsidiary projects, now on stream, which are creating excellent viable employment.
These were policies of the previous Government.
That would have happened whether or not the Taoiseach had a photocall on it.
Bord na Móna also, one of the companies mentioned by Deputy Spring, are enthusiastically engaged——
They are crying out for financial reconstruction.
That has nothing to do with it. They are enthusiastically pursuing projects for job creation and doing so successfully.
They are being hampered by high interest charges.
They are not.
We are getting different messages.
They are doing so successfully, so please take a constructive attitude towards job creation for a change. I have to say that in regard to our general economic development and commercial activities Deputies are to a large extent negative in this House.
That is nonsense. The truth came out yesterday. That is the problem.
The purpose of Question No. 7 was to ascertain the factual basis of the expectations of job creation by the semi-State companies. In the light of the replies the Taoiseach has given on the estimated potential of the import substitution of 25,000 jobs, can the Taoiseach say whether that is seen as a gross estimate, in other words, net of job losses in the Semi-State area? Will he indicate also — he may not have the information to hand but, perhaps, he will undertake to supply it to me — the degree to which the original target in December 1989 of 7,000 jobs was reached so that we could have some way of judging where we are going in relation to job creation?
I think we have exceeded the 7,000 figure but I will get the Deputy a more precise figure. The target is £1 billion worth of products and components. We may not reach that, but in so far as that amount of business could be created by the semi-State companies, not necessarily in their own activities, but, perhaps, creating new companies to do so, it would create 25,000 new jobs gross and net.
I want to ask a constructive question.
The Deputy is offering a constructive question which would be such a welcome development that I am prepared to sit down and listen to it.
Would the Taoiseach consider examining the record of the national linkage programme which set out to do exactly what the Taoiseach is now attempting? Would the Taoiseach examine whether our present corporation profits tax makes it profitable for multinationals who are in business here to source components here at all?
The Deputy has answered himself, to a large extent. This service is really an extension or rather a deepening of the linkage programme. The multinationals are quite anxious and willing to source as much of their requirements in this country as possible.
I set up the linkage programme and it has not been a success. How does the Taoiseach expect that this will be a success?
Perhaps I could make a better success of it than the Deputy did.
That is a very easy remark to make but will the Taoiseach examine the report on that programme because it was well established that the problem is that the companies simply do not have an incentive to buy components here under the present tax regime.
