I wish to share time with Deputy Billy Timmins. I am very glad Deputy Timmins will have an opportunity to speak since he has represented the town of Arklow very well and will continue to do so for Fine Gael in the future. I too am a representative of County Wicklow and I am naturally enough concerned about the future of the IFI plant and in particular, the work force in Arklow. As other Deputies said, the history of NET is a very difficult one. The chronic financial debt overrun that built up to extremely high proportions has always been there as a cloud threatening the future of the Arklow plant. Inevitably the rationalisation experience reduced the work force dramatically. The work force now is at more than 600 people. However, the reduction in the past of the numbers at IFI had a significant impact on the prosperity of Arklow town and the hinterland of south Wicklow and north Wexford. Those job losses were compounded by job losses at the potteries and the closure of the mines at Avoca to such an extent that the town went into a period of serious decline. For years, Arklow was an unemployment blackspot. However, over the lifetime of the last Government, and in the time of this Government, infrastructural development and tourism related investment has transformed the town. It is designated now as a growth centre under the regional strategic planning guidelines. While the town is being restricted unfortunately by the inability of the urban district council to proceed with the planned sewage treatment plant, the future of Arklow, it is safe to say, is secure.
I hope the future of the workers at IFI is as secure. Ever since its establishment, the economic life of the fertiliser factory and that of the town of Arklow have been inextricably linked. Today the interdependence is less pronounced. There is a greater level of industrial development generally which offers employment opportunities for people living not just in Arklow but in the south Wicklow hinterland. However, that said, the IFI plant is still a major employer. Some 630 workers are employed by the company. There has been considerable investment in plant facilities to bring it up to a par with other EU plants. It is now a very competitive and efficient plant. Significantly, confidence in the future of the plant is such that young workers have been taken on in recent times and have been trained up in-house. Recruitment is a good indicator that the company is intent on regenerating its work force which can only be an encouraging sign. While this Bill does not secure the future for the IFI plant and for these young workers, its provisions will rationalise the current legal framework and open up the next stage in the life of Arklow and of the operation in Cork.
The purpose of the Bill is to transfer the accumulated debt of NET to the Minister for Fin ance. It also allows for the transfer by the Minister with responsibility for managing the debt to the National Treasury Management Agency. Most importantly, at local level, it opens up the opportunity for the sale by NET of the State's 51% shareholding in IFI at some point in the future. Along with the other measures in the Bill these arrangements will lead in time to the winding up of the holding company NET.
The establishment of the joint venture company of IFI in 1986 was a major step in resolving the problems besetting them at the time but the cost has been considerable. The relationship between NET and the IFI company was complex but essentially a contractual arrangement. This in effect ended at the end of 1999. NET was a vehicle for supplying to IFI the natural gas which is the essential raw material for the process. Once that arrangement came to an end, the purpose was null and void in terms of the company itself.
The company, at the moment, buys raw material from a number of sources but clearly the gas link with Scotland has importance for IFI in providing it with an assured supply. The company, despite this major debt that has been present for a considerable time now, has achieved viability in commercial terms. That needs to be put on the record. It required considerable investment and a certain sacrifice in terms of rationalisation but there is a greater confidence. As yet a suitable buyer has not been found. The State intends to sell off its share and ICI too intends to sell. ICI globally has been getting out of the fertiliser business and there is an objective there to withdraw. Change is coming and it is vital that when that sale occurs, the jobs and the future of the work force are secured. IFI had a stable performance in a business that is extremely cyclical, prone to very severe shifts and inherently unstable in many ways although its performance in the home market has been inestimable and two thirds of the business is internal. The future of IFI will have an impact on agriculture and any buyer must take the long-term view not just in terms of the needs of the company but the needs of the larger market it serves.
I raise the matter of worker participation because under this Bill it inevitably will come to an end in terms of the set-up in NET. I commend the role of the worker directors. The principle of worker participation at decision-making level is an essential one. Currently, we are seeing the breakdown of industrial relations on a huge scale across important sectors of our economic life affecting entire swathes of Irish life from the taxi men to nurses, from teachers to railway workers and the pilots. Despite the fact that this Government is headed up by a Taoiseach who made his name as being good at labour relations and being the kind of person who could fix the problem when industrial relations ran into rocky patches, we currently have an extraordinary state of upheaval countrywide. It is not just about money or conditions.
As spokesperson on health, I am very con scious that in the hospital structure particularly, among professionals and health care workers providing essential services there is an alienation from the management structures within which they operate. That kind of social partnership does not just occur at the top. It is not just a matter of negotiating at the top, it is a matter of ensuring that it comes from the bottom up. The worker directors in NET are an important model of how things should be. For example, they played a very important role when the plant was threatened by the ILDA workers' strike, during which supply to the plant in Arklow was cut off. There was a close relationship between management and workers, and a very clear commitment to resolving a problem not of their own making, and much energy went in to doing what was generally perceived to be the impossible task of ensuring that supply was provided for IFI in Arklow. They went to Cork and did the business, and it was a very fine example of social partnership being not just about striking deals with Government or the various pillars of the social partnership structure, but about ensuring that people can work together in a good atmosphere and on a basis of trust.
Deputies Joe Higgins and Pat Rabbitte spoke about the role of the banks and the history of the enormous debt which is still outstanding. The banks made extraordinary profits from debts arising in the 1980s and have done so ever since. In ways NET was a cash cow for the banks all through the years during which, it is now clear, many of the banks themselves were involved in ripping off the taxpayer. At a time when Arklow was on its knees in economic terms, the banks were leeching off the State both in legitimate ways and, as is now evident, in illegitimate ways as well. That is something we should not lose sight of.
I was interested to hear Deputy Ahern refer earlier in a positive way to the role of Charles J. Haughey in terms of managing the national debt. To me, the image of a time when the Taoiseach of this country, a Fianna Fáil Taoiseach, was living high on money that belonged to other people, supporting an extraordinarily lavish lifestyle, while in the town of Arklow a generation of young people were forced to leave their home place and work elsewhere because there was no work for them and no possibility of a future, provides a stark contrast which is something we should not lose sight of. Time can distance people's understanding of an experience. It is important that we have the reminders, the contrasts, the reality of the lives of people in Arklow at that time.
The last point I would like to make before handing over to Deputy Timmins is in relation to the cross-Border aspect of the work being done by IFI. This is not a new aspect. It now has quite a track record. It is enlightening to see, particularly since the Good Friday Agreement, how many connections are building up very rapidly between Northern Ireland and the Republic. There is an enthusiasm now in many areas of activity, whether economic or otherwise – I am particularly conscious of the area of health – where the connections and the growth of cross-Border activity are speeding well ahead of the formal structures and policies being put in place as a consequence of work being done by the two Governments. Here we have a model that grew up out of necessity but also out of seeing that there was great benefit to be had by cross-Border connection and working together, and that is to the credit of everybody involved.