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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 29 Jun 1993

Vol. 433 No. 1

Industrial Development Bill, 1993 [ Seanad ]: Report and Final Stages.

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 3, line 11, to delete "FORFAS".

This amendment is largely similar to the first amendment moved by Deputy Cullen on Committee Stage which, unfortunately, was not completed at that time due to the extraordinary shortage of time for Committee Stage. Report Stage is even worse because we have only one hour to deal with a total of 28 amendments.

Because of competing legislation this Bill does not get a great deal of attention. Given the underlying problem of more than 300,000 people unemployed, I cannot imagine anything more important. During my period in the Department of Industry and Commerce I sought to respond to that problem by establishing the Culliton committee, asking it to work rapidly, putting considerable facilities at its disposal, which it used fully, publishing its report within a matter of days of my receiving it at the beginning of 1992 and immediately instigating the necessary steps to have it implemented.

On Committee Stage I outlined some of the history of the difficulties that the implementation of this report caused during 1992. It was discussed in this House on a number of occasions during Question Time and otherwise and the present Minister expressed to me his agreement with what Culliton had recommended. The Moriarty committee, which we set up to implement the Culliton proposals, agreed with it also. The only disagreement appeared to come from some of the Fianna Fáil members of the then Government and, it was claimed, from some parts of the Department of Finance. The matter became increasingly difficult and fraught with problems and last September it was finally decided, in default of proper agreement, that we should go forward on the basis that there would be two agencies which would be divisions of a single holding company but that the holding company would be no more than a holding company. I did not agree then nor do I agree now with that concept but one could live with that if it were to be implemented. The structure contained in this Bill in what is so inelegantly called "Forfás", is much more than just a holding company. It seems to be the central company among three agencies, which is clearly in conflict with what Culliton proposed.

It is not just a matter of detail that Culliton made certain proposals. He indicated at some length the reasons there should not be a central company, which would mean essentially carrying on as we are at the moment. It was agreed by all concerned that that was most unsatisfactory. The Minister on Committee Stage found it difficult to justify what he was trying to do and in the course of his defence of this measure he surprised me somewhat by running down the Department concerned. I thought that was very regrettable and sought to defend the situation that I had left, which I believe I was entitled to do. I have been somewhat surprised since to find that apparently one is not expected to do that. So I was informed in trenchant terms recently.

It is clear that Forfás is not part of the strategy Culliton devised, that it runs counter to that strategy, that it will not allow the achievement of what he wanted and that it will bring the two agencies together in a way that will allow the overseas success of one to cloud the difficulties the other will encounter. That is a great pity. It would be much healthier if two agencies were operating quite separately and independently from each other and not being run from a central holding agency.

The need to have a large agency devoted specifically to the encouragement and promotion of indigenous industry, with all the necessary support services, has been made abundantly clear in Culliton. We will have only some of the support services. The trade and marketing aspect is being taken out and will be located in a different Department. The training aspect, which was to be included in the Bill as envisaged last October, has been removed and FÁS remains an independent body as it always was. The effectiveness of the proposed structure is very heavily diluted. That is extremely regrettable.

I do not wish to repeat all of the arguments as they were set out fully on Committee Stage and I wish to give other Deputies the opportunity to have their say on the matter. I hope that since Committee Stage the Minister may have reconsidered the position and that he will take the sensible step of accepting this amendment which will eliminate the Forfás concept as it is proposed in this Bill.

With the very restricted time available to us I will attempt to be brief in my contribution. The responsibilities of Forfás, and the terms of reference set for it are really the task of a Department in proper control of the formulating of policy. There should not be need for an intermediary board between the Minister and the front line agencies that are interpreting and, it seems to me, substituting for a proper policy-making body within his Department.

We have not had for either Culliton or the Minister any real analysis of why indigenous industry has failed to develop. It is not that we have had only one agency dealing with both indigenous and foreign but because we have never bothered to evolve proper policies. Successive Ministers have not driven their Department in the direction of making the long term investment in indigenous companies over and above the short term fix that was available from the foreign industry strategy. We cannot blame the agencies or the IDA for doing that if the Ministers in control did not make the necessary changes.

The establishment of this board is an attempt to paper over glaring defects in the series of Government decisions. The Minister had the good grace to admit they were political compromises, but they were also bizarre compromises. It is not right to separate An Bord Tráchtála from decision making on industrial policy. It is not right that two separate Departments make decisions relating to the same companies. We have failed to evolve in this Bill, despite Culliton's recommendation, a coherent regional strategy. The most extraordinary array of regional instruments will operate here. The big defect is that no one has developed a thesis as to what makes a successful bottom-up development in Ireland. All this has been done by a seat of the pants approach, and that is a bad way to legislate and govern.

At no stage in the debate did the Minister answer the matter raised by Culliton that was expected would be dealt with in this Bill, that is the lack of coherence in science and technology policy. There is still the parallel activity of the Minister's Department on the one hand and Eolas on the other. Culliton rightly criticised the lack of coherence in science and technology.

Last week all of us on the Opposition benches were dismayed that the reasons advanced for the setting up of Forfás related entirely to side issues such as management of the land bank and staff deployment in the bodies involved. It is pathetic that those are the justifications for setting up that body. In this Bill the Minister wants us to accept that this is the empty vehicle into which subsequently all the ideas, all the mechanics will be put, accepting on faith that this vehicle, which last week I compared with a camel, will generate policy. That is the wrong way to proceed. We should not produce the bodies first and then, as the late John Kelly colourfully described in this House, when the brass plate is up on the door and the new furniture is bought for the office, the people sit around the table and say: "Well now lads, what are we going to do?". There is an outgrowth of bodies here and we are expected to accept on faith that the real policy substance will come afterwards.

The final issue I wish to raise is directly relevant to what we are doing today, that is the potential impact on Irish jobs of changes in US tax law. It is wrong to dismiss their significance as irrelevant. The reality is that they have been aimed precisely at Ireland and a small number of other countries that used the tax code to attract American companies. The tax liabilities of the American companies involved will be almost quadrupled under the new rules. The 25 per cent threshold on assets set in US law could easily be exceeded in many cases of American companies in Ireland because as they typically rent their factory space and lease equipment they have a small asset base in Ireland. We could run into very serious difficulties in that regard.

Irish jobs in American companies are particularly vulnerable because of the structure of American industry here. American industry is highly profitable but it has very poor linkages with the Irish economy. To take two examples from recent industrial reports, US companies earn six times the profits per man of that earned by Irish companies and three times the profits earned by EC companies located in Ireland. By contrast, they buy only 23 per cent of their materials in Ireland whereas Irish companies buy 70 per cent of their materials here and EC companies 48 per cent. Therefore American companies are highly profitable, poor linkage companies and that makes them footloose and vulnerable to even small changes in US tax law.

The Government should not think complacently that it has won a great victory by virtue of the fact that the US Senate is offering slightly less draconian measures than the House of Representatives offered. The reality is that even the Senate proposals will have severe impacts on us and will make the IDA's job much more difficult. We should get an honest statement from the Government on this matter rather than the very complacent statement of a couple of lines issued last week.

It is possible to take a different view from that of Deputy O'Malley and say that because this Bill is so narrow in scope and is, in the Minister's words, merely enabling legislation it is not very important. It is the only Bill that has been brought before the House since the publication of the Culliton report and, albeit, a technical Bill, narrow in scope and merely an enabling Bill, it must be addressed as the only opportunity we have had up to now to raise the question of necessary legislative measures deriving from the findings of the Culliton review team. Whereas the three parties in Opposition would not necessarily agree on many things, we are agreed that this Bill proposes a structure that is too complex, too bureaucratic, too elaborate, too unfocused, too diffuse and too ineffective for the purpose of the job that has to be done. The last thing we want is that the last stage would be worse than the first by way of the plethora of agencies and the complex structures that must be weaved through in terms of industrial development.

Deputy Bruton raised a very important point in instancing the chicken and egg argument. In all probability, in any serious examintion of the necessity to revamp industrial policy one would come to the conclusion that you do not start with the agencies. That conclusion was reached after Telesis. The Minister nodded his head vigorously the last day, indicating agreement that politicians, governments and Ministers have been all too happy down the years to take the credits and plaudits which the IDA's success in attracting multinational industry have brought and to pass to the IDA responsibility for the negative aspects of industrial development. Ironically, that is precisely what the Minister is doing here again. Instead of going along with Culliton, making more clear the focus of his Department and taking responsibility for policy development, he is passing the onus to a new agency called Forfás, whose responsibility will be to do what the Department of Enterprise and Employment ought to be doing.

It was interesting to hear the paternity of this Bill detailed by the former Minister, Deputy O'Malley. If I understood him correctly, he said that at the end of all the horse trading that went on in the artificial climate preceeding the unravelling of the last Government it was agreed that there would be an umbrella body but that it would be no more than a holding company. What we have here is a great deal more than a holding company — in effect, it will be the dominant agency. Unless the Minister has discovered new arguments since the last day, if he falls back on the argument that he has set up this body for purposes of neatness, to cope with land transfers and personnel management, a holding company could very well do both of those tasks, even if one concedes they are as important as the Minister says. Instead, we have set up a new super agency in whose powers will be reposed the major force in Irish industrial development.

Until we see the colour of the Government's money on the critical issues of industrial policy of today, which may mean a change of direction in a number of areas, until those policy targets are clear and the Government tells us what its new policy goals are, it is foolish to have rushed into setting up a plethora of new agencies of which Forfás is only at the pinnacle. Right down to the level of the county enterprise board we have rushed into the creation of agencies rather than giving priority to the delineation of policy and the clarification of many of the critical issues to which unfortunately, we have only a limited time to devote in this debate.

Deputy Bruton raised an important issue which arose from a matter about which a number of us raised questions in this House, the change in the tax legislation is the US as it affects multinational companies here. This could be a very serious matter for industrial development here. Not so long ago it was not the done thing to admit — because somehow it reflected on companies giving badly needed employment here — as we now do that these companies used the relative status of this country as a tax haven to artificially boost profits made in this country. That has been happening on such a scale internationally with transnational corporations that the American Congress felt it necessary to face up to it. The focus of the legislation was not really designed for Ireland. There are a number of other countries nearer to the US who have been the genesis of this legislation. Nonetheless, even in its moderated fashion, it applies to Ireland and could have very serious implications for our industrial development. Deputy Bruton adduced some very telling statistics in terms of the relative significance of those companies here compared to other international and indigenous companies. That is a major issue which we are not likely to have an opportunity to debate. I welcome the opportunity now given to the Minister to make some comment on that matter.

I hope the Minister does not intend to persist with the complex structure he is now putting in place as we may live to regret it. We should have preceded this with the necessary policy evaluation and then brought in a simpler, more effective network of agencies, that could do the job.

It will not come as a surprise to the House that I cannot accept this and related amendments. My understanding of the essence of what Culliton proposed and Moriarty recommended, notwithstanding the political decision of the Government in its programme for Government which was endorsed in the House, to separate trade from the old Department of Industry and Commerce, was that from the point of view of industrial development there should be two separate agencies, one dedicated to attracting mobile investment and the other to promoting indigenous industry. There is no difficulty in recognising that we have separated the agency which will be known as IDA Ireland on the recommendation of Culliton and Moriarty. There is clearly a difference in relation to what Moriarty and Culliton recommended and what we propose in respect of Forbairt, because a Government decision prior to that separated the Department of Tourism and Trade and, consequently and logically, the element of ABT. Deputy McCreevy and I looked at the possibility of dividing the marketing functions between ABT and Forbairt so that there would be some marketing function in Forbairt but we realised that would make a bad situation worse. We thought the best way to achieve what we wanted was to get clear co-operation between ABT and Forbairt.

Deputies said that where we had one agency we will now have three. We had two agencies, Eolas and the IDA, and now we will have three. As far as the public and industry are concerned, we had two agencies, Eolas and the IDA and we will have two agencies again in the sense that we will have IDA Ireland for inward investment and Forbairt for domestic activity.

This is enabling legislation designed to meet the timetable recommended by Moriarty, which suggested that the Department of Enterprise and Employment should draft the heads of the Bill by April 1993, publish the text by May 1993 and that the Bill if accepted, should be enacted by July 1993.

Not this Bill?

At the end of the day this House is responsible for legislation. Culliton was not some extraordinary separate Government with a right to dictate. Everybody concedes that the Culliton committee said that the role of agencies in the promotion of industrial activity here is less important now than it was some time ago. Certainly our perception of our dependence on agencies is less important.

I accept the comment by Deputy O'Malley about my acceptance of the Culliton recommendation that there should be two agencies from the point of view of delivering services to Irish industry, indigenous and inward investment. That is what we are getting. The holding company was a compromise which Deputy O'Malley did not like. It was proposed by a number of people and the Department of Finance, to the previous Government. There are a number of operational reasons which I do not have time to go into which makes the legal existence of Forfás a useful, necessary vehicle if we are to meet the legislative timetable set out in Moriarty. If I had not done this we would not have any restructuring of agencies until next December and they would not commence work until the beginning of 1994.

Deputy Bruton implied that we are preoccupied with agency restructuring in the absence of a clear policy. I would not like the House to think that this is the only legislation which will come before it and that Opposition Deputies should look at it on that basis. This is not a considered policy response to the problems of industrial policy in the last part of the decade, It is an amazing mechanism enabling me to restructure the agencies quickly in accordance with the wishes of the House but not to create the kind of super-agency to which Deputy O'Malley referred. In section 6 (2) of the Bill the Minister can give general directives. In section 9 (1) the Minister can direct Forfás to delegate specific functions to both the IDA and Forbairt, both of which imply policy decisions being made in Kildare Street, where they should be made. I agree with Deputy Bruton that that is where policy decisions should — and will — be made. It is easy to be wise in hindsight but, for a variety of reasons, policy drifted from Kildare Street to the IDA. Policy will be made in Kildare Street, by somebody who is politically accountable to Cabinet and this House. Should directions be needed, they will be given to Forfás, in written form if necessary, so that there is absolute clarity about who is responsible for what. In response to the argument that this is a super agency, I may add that Forfás will not be able to interact directly with the market and will not be able to give grants or financial assistance in any shape or form.

The reason we have constructed the Bill in this way is to enable me implement the Moriarty recommendations as quickly as possible, as outlined in the Programme for Government. that is not to imply that policy development is on hold, or that there is no policy development within the Department in relation to focusing, á la Telesis and others, on the need to develop indigenous industry. Deputy Richard Bruton read into the record some statistics about the comparative looseness of connection between American industry located in Ireland, and indigenous industry or other European, non-Irish industry, all matters of fact to which we must have increasing regard.

In addition to that — and I am conscious that I am addressing a House with an empty Press Gallery — the development of the tax regime in the United States of America is of considerable concern. The former Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy O'Malley, will be aware of the IDA's continuous monitoring of the impact of any changes in the US taxation system on Ireland's attractiveness as a location. Most of us would recognise that, if our attraction as a place for inward investment is based on the United States Congress's interpretation of tax laws, we shall be in a very vulnerable position. We must strengthen the attractiveness of Ireland as a place to invest irrespective of how the United States Congress proposes to tax American industry. The Government still awaits a detailed analysis of how the US Congress, in its entirety, will interpret the changes the US Senate has made to the House of Representatives' tax Bill and its implications for the various Irish-based United States corporations. Most people will understand the sensitivities associated with that. The attraction of investment will become increasingly difficult if we must base such attraction more and more on the quality of the Irish labour force and the overall industrial environment in which such industry can locate.

We are incorporating in this Bill the existing corpus of legislation that established the Industrial Development Authority in 1969, 1984 Act and the 1989 science and technology legislation. Many of the sections dealing with the powers, responsibilities and remit of the former Minister for Industry and Commerce, now Enterprise and Employment, are encapsulated in this Bill.

For those reasons I cannot accept the amendment. Deputy Molloy suggested that an internal administrative arrangement could be devised within the Department to resolve the difficulties to which I referred. We examined various ways in which these issues could be dealt with and came to the conclusion that Forfás — in the legal form set out in the various sections — constituted the best kind of administrative arrangement. The Minister will be able to direct the indigenous agency and IDA Ireland to implement policy in the manner I have prescribed

It is my sad duty to reply to this short debate because we have had no response at all from the Minister but largely a repetition of what he said the last day, plus one or two other points that were not any stronger than what he said then. It is very disappointing.

This amendment, with which approximately ten others are associated for the purpose of discussion, is central to the overall approach by the Minister and Government in this Bill. There are approximately nine other amendments dependent on this one or connected therewith. For that reason I regard it as important.

The Minister said one of the reasons Forfás features in the rather meaningful way proposed in this Bill is that it will be more convenient for holding land than dealing with personnel. The other principal reason was that this House had accepted in January a division of the former Department of Industry and Commerce into Enterprise and Employment on the one hand and, on the other, Trade and Tourism. It followed that one should have a company of this kind to maintain a relationship with An Bord Tráchtála, which would not form part of Forbairt, as had been intended up to October last. The House never accepted this. It was a fait accompli handed to us. There was no debate on it——

We did vote on it.

I do not think we voted on the Minister's proposal on 12 January last. It was not a matter open to us to debate. I did refer to it in passing because it was indicated that this change would be made. The change was made outside the House; it was not made by legislation. The Minister went on to say that Culliton had suggested two agencies only and that we really had two only as far as the people who had to deal with them were concerned, those two being IDA Ireland and Forbairt.

It would appear that the Minister's mathematics are not great because the public or business people would have to deal with some of the following list. I am not saying they would have to deal with all of them. Some are mutually exclusive in that they deal with different areas of the country geographically. They are the following: Forfás, Forbairt, IDA Ireland, An Bord Tráchtála, FÁS, SFADCo, Údarás na Gaeltachta and 36 county enterprise boards. That adds up to more than two agencies to which the public will be exposed. It adds up to an almighty amount of bureaucracy. It is precisely what Culliton said we should not have. The Culliton report did not contain one line about county enterprise boards. This was something dreamed up for internal political reasons last September, never considered by any Department, Industry and Commerce or Finance, and passed by the Government by way of majority approval of a press release, which is not a great way to do business. All these other bodies are still in existence which it had been intended would be merged into Forbairt. The degree of bureaucracy and overlap is really unforgivable. As someone who spent a couple of years trying to get this problem straightened out once and for all, it saddens me to observe that we are worse off than when we started.

If I had wanted to keep things simple, I would have been better off if I had never set up the Culliton review group, had not sought over 1992 to implement its report and had decided to leave things as they were. In that case we would have fewer agencies and fewer complications and would be nearer the one-stop-shop that the Culliton review group recommended. Culliton wanted this for a reason, and not just because he liked the look of it; he gave us compelling reasons but the Minister has not given us any compelling reason it should be otherwise. He has given us three reasons, the first of which is that it would be better if someone held the land but this can be divided between the agencies in any way one likes. For example, if the land was vested in Forbairt and IDA Ireland wanted some of it for one of its clients they could ask Forbairt for 20 acres or if there was any problem they could approach the Minister and the Department. That is the way it has been done for years in the mid-west where the land is held by Shannon Development. I cannot recall any difficulties in that regard. Since most of the personnel will go to Forbairt 200 could be transferred from there to IDA Ireland.

So far as the decision in regard to a new Department of Trade is concerned it is like saying that because somebody made a foolish mistake we have to make foolish mistakes all the way along the line. Anyone who has a feel for this situation — I am one of those because I was there long enough — knows that it makes no sense to hive-off a separate Department of Trade with a handful of people because the marketing structure would be isolated from where it should be, which is right in the centre of the Department with responsibility for the promotion of indigenous industry; it would be isolated into a cul de sac or a corner where it would be separate from everything else and that would be regrettable.

The Minister spoke briefly about the tax changes in the United States without giving too many details. Deputies Bruton and Rabbitte were right to raise this matter because, while I do not have the details either, I am afraid it looks ominous. The comments which have been made give rise to concern.

I was not unduly perturbed during the past year when I heard that it was proposed to make these changes because I can hardly remember a time when there was not some proposal before Congress in the United States to clamp down on American companies which invest overseas. There has been always a protectionist atmosphere in the United States where foreign investment by American companies is not seen in a good light. The people who usually take that view are also the people who would like to put up trade barriers around the United States to keep out imports. Their reasoning is similar in each case but usually commonsense prevails. We have always lobbied strongly and been able to have removed provisions which would have been damaging to this country. I remember going to Washington on a number of occasions on such errand.

I recall that about a year ago proposals of this kind were made but it seemed that they would not affect us seriously because they would not be applied against those countries with which the US had a favourable balance of trade. The United States is in the unfortunate position where it has an unfavourable balance of trade with most of the world but happily for them and unhappily for us they have a favourable balance of trade with us. There was every prospect that we would get out under that exemption clause but that must have disappeared. Admittedly, that was to apply to a certain aspect of the matter, I do not know if the position has changed in the meantime but I am disappointed to hear that we are now caught, apparently for the first time in a long time. We should make every effort to negotiate our way out of that position.

Tax law is constantly changing in the United States; Bills are being brought forward all the time, they do not have to be brought forward by the administration, they can be brought forward by individual Senators and Congressmen. The Minister should avail of the opportunity to give the House more details, to state what has happened and state what the position is because potentially it could be serious for us.

Question put: "That the words proposed to be deleted stand".
The Committee divided: Tá, 59; Níl, 38.

  • Ahern, Bertie.
  • Ahern, Michael.
  • Andrews, David.
  • Aylward, Liam.
  • Bhamjee, Moosajee.
  • Briscoe, Ben.
  • Browne, John (Wexford).
  • Burke, Raphael P.
  • Burton, Joan.
  • Byrne, Hugh.
  • Callely, Ivor.
  • Coughlan, Mary.
  • Davern, Noel.
  • Dempsey, Noel.
  • de Valera, Síle.
  • Doherty, Seán.
  • Ferris, Michael.
  • Fitzgerald, Brian.
  • Fitzgerald, Eithne.
  • Fitzgerald, Liam.
  • Foley, Denis.
  • Gallagher, Pat (Laoighis-Offaly).
  • Haughey, Seán.
  • Higgins, Michael D.
  • Howlin, Brendan.
  • Hughes, Séamus.
  • Hyland, Liam.
  • Jacob, Joe.
  • Kenny, Seán.
  • Killeen, Tony.
  • Kirk, Séamus.
  • Kitt, Tom.
  • Lawlor, Liam.
  • Lenihan, Brian.
  • McCreevy, Charlie.
  • McDaid, James.
  • Morley, P. J.
  • Nolan, M. J.
  • Ó Cuív, Éamon.
  • O'Keeffe, Batt.
  • O'Keeffe, Ned.
  • O'Leary, John.
  • O'Rourke, Mary.
  • O'Shea, Brian.
  • O'Sullivan, Gerry.
  • Penrose, William.
  • Power, Seán.
  • Quinn, Ruairí.
  • Reynolds, Albert.
  • Ryan, Eoin.
  • Ryan, John.
  • Ryan, Seán.
  • Spring, Dick.
  • Stagg, Emmet.
  • Taylor, Mervyn.
  • Wallace, Dan.
  • Walsh, Mary.
  • Walsh, Eamon.
  • Walsh, Joe.

Níl

  • Ahearn, Theresa.
  • Barrett, Seán.
  • Boylan, Andrew.
  • Burke, Liam.
  • Carey, Donal.
  • Clohessy, Peadar.
  • Connaughton, Paul.
  • Cox, Pat.
  • Crawford, Seymour.
  • Deenihan, Jimmy.
  • De Rossa, Proinsias.
  • Doyle, Avril.
  • Dukes, Alan M.
  • Fitzgerald, Frances.
  • Flaherty, Mary.
  • Flanagan, Charles.
  • Foxe, Tom.
  • Gregory, Tony.
  • Harney, Mary.
  • Browne, John (Carlow-Kilkenny).
  • Bruton, John.
  • Bruton, Richard.
  • Hogan, Philip.
  • Kenny, Enda.
  • Keogh, Helen.
  • Lowry, Michael.
  • McCormack, Pádraic.
  • McGrath, Paul.
  • McManus, Liz.
  • Molloy, Robert.
  • Noonan, Michael (Limerick East).
  • O'Donnell, Liz.
  • O'Malley, Desmond J.
  • Quill, Máirín.
  • Rabbitte, Pat.
  • Sheehan, P. J.
  • Timmins, Godfrey.
  • Yates, Ivan.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Dempsey and Ferris; Níl, Deputies Keogh and O'Donnell.
Question declared carried.
Amendment declared lost.

In respect of Item No. 22, Industrial Development Bill, 1993, [Seanad], as the time permitted for this debate has now expired I am required to put the following question in accordance with an Order of the Dáil of this day: “That Fourth Stage is hereby completed and the Bill is hereby passed.”

Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 57; Níl, 38.

  • Ahern, Bertie.
  • Ahern, Michael.
  • Andrews, David.
  • Aylward, Liam.
  • Bhamjee, Moosajee.
  • Briscoe, Ben.
  • Browne, John (Wexford).
  • Burke, Raphael P.
  • Burton, Joan.
  • Byrne, Hugh.
  • Callely, Ivor.
  • Coughlan, Mary.
  • Davern, Noel.
  • Dempsey, Noel.
  • de Valera, Síle.
  • Doherty, Seán.
  • Ferris, Michael.
  • Fitzgerald, Brian.
  • Fitzgerald, Eithne.
  • Fitzgerald, Liam.
  • Foley, Denis.
  • Gallagher, Pat (Laoighis-Offaly).
  • Geoghegan-Quinn, Máire.
  • Haughey, Seán.
  • Higgins, Michael D.
  • Howlin, Brendan.
  • Hughes, Séamus.
  • Hyland, Liam.
  • Jacob, Joe.
  • Kenny, Seán.
  • Killeen, Tony.
  • Kirk, Séamus.
  • Kitt, Tom.
  • Lawlor, Liam.
  • Lenihan, Brian.
  • McCreevy, Charlie.
  • McDaid, James.
  • Morley, P.J.
  • Nolan, M.J.
  • Ó Cuív, Éamon.
  • O'Keeffe, Batt.
  • O'Keeffe, Ned.
  • O'Leary, John.
  • O'Shea, Brian.
  • O'Sullivan, Gerry.
  • Penrose, William.
  • Power, Seán.
  • Quinn, Ruairí.
  • Ryan, Eoin.
  • Ryan, John.
  • Ryan, Seán.
  • Stagg, Emmet.
  • Taylor, Mervyn.
  • Wallace, Dan.
  • Wallace, Mary.
  • Walsh, Eamon.
  • Walsh, Joe.

Níl

  • Ahearn, Theresa.
  • Barrett, Seán.
  • Boylan, Andrew.
  • Bradford, Paul.
  • Browne, John (Carlow-Kilkenny).
  • Bruton, John.
  • Bruton, Richard.
  • Burke, Liam.
  • Carey, Donal.
  • Clohessy, Peadar.
  • Connaughton, Paul.
  • Cox, Pat.
  • Deenihan, Jimmy.
  • De Rossa, Proinsias.
  • Doyle, Avril.
  • Dukes, Alan M.
  • Fitzgerald, Frances.
  • Flaherty, Mary.
  • Flanagan, Charles.
  • Foxe, Tom.
  • Gregory, Tony.
  • Harney, Mary.
  • Hogan, Philip.
  • Kenny, Enda.
  • Keogh, Helen.
  • Lowry, Michael.
  • McCormack, Pádraic.
  • McGrath, Paul.
  • McManus, Liz.
  • Molloy, Robert.
  • Noonan, Michael (Limerick East).
  • O'Donnell, Liz.
  • O'Malley, Desmond J.
  • Quill, Máirín.
  • Rabbitte, Pat.
  • Sheehan, P.J.
  • Timmins, Godfrey.
  • Yates, Ivan.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Dempsey and Ferris; Níl, Deputies Keogh and O'Donnell.
Question declared carried.

The Bill which is considered by virtue of Article 20.2.2º of the Constitution, as a Bill initiated in Dáil Éireann, will now be sent to the Seanad.

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