I thank you, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, for having given me permission to raise this matter and the Minister for attending. Since a Private Notice Question on the subject was tabled last week the overall position has not merely changed but deteriorated. My purpose in raising it again this evening is to seek the up-to-date position and to reiterate that we are all at one on it.
I asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment last week whether he would speak to the Taoiseach and request him to speak directly to the British Prime Minister, Mr. John Major, because of the now perilous state of negotiations between British and Irish officials in this matter, with the survival deal daily becoming less sure of implementation.
I understand that no progress has been made even though it has emerged that the British Government acted in bad faith at European Union level by claiming that British Steel would close a plant. The Minister informed us last week, also reported in The Financial Times, that Britain had said that if Ireland went ahead they would close a British steel plant leading to loss of employment within their industry. It now transpires that the chairman of British Steel, Mr. Brian Moffat, has said there will be no closure of any of their plants despite what may or may not happen in the case of Irish Steel, demonstrating that that pretext has been blown out of the water. They named the particular plant in Staffordshire, which it appears does not produce the same product as Irish Steel Limited. That, therefore, is also a flimsy pretext. The British are being deliberately intransigent. They are acting in bad faith in the negotiations with the Irish officials, and appear to be playing games with the EU. When Luxembourg dropped its initial objection, the rest of the Ministers were in agreement with what Ireland was trying to do. Their attitude was that Ireland and the UK should get together and settle the matter. British intransigence must be ended. The Irish Steel workers are going through a very worrying time, and they have already been through stringent retrenchment, particularly in the last 12 months. They have weathered all sorts of domestic and internal storms during which they made massive readjustments, and now our neighbour across the water will put a spoke in their wheel. It is imperative for the Taoiseach to take an interest in the matter.
Before I came into the House I spoke to someone, not from the Irish side, who is very involved in this, who said that just 30,000 tonnes divides the two negotiating teams. Surely this is a case of a giant British Steel-UK Government, which has done very well having reported a threefold increase in profits in its half-yearly results, taking a sledgehammer to 400 Irish Steel workers in a small country, very committed to Europe, with one steel plant, Irish Steel. That company is prepared to live with the guarantee of a limited output and has found a congenial partner prepared to invest money to enhance the plant while sticking rigidly to the production limits with which the Minister, Deputy Richard Bruton, went to Brussels. So much for European solidarity. Will the Minister of State convey to the Taoiseach our solidarity on the issue and, most of all, our wish that by whatever means he can, perhaps during the upcoming summit, he should speak directly to the British Prime Minister, Mr. John Major? It requires intervention at that level to make sure that the veto is dropped.