Seanad Éireann debate -
Thursday, 10 Jul 1958

Vol. 49 No. 8

Turf Development Bill, 1958—Second Stage.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. S. Lemass)

I do not think this Bill will give the Seanad any difficulty or provoke any controversies. Its purpose is to enable Bord na Móna to join with Messrs. Arthur Guinness Son and Company (Dublin) Limited in establishing and maintaining a Chair of Industrial Microbiology at University College, Dublin. Towards the end of last year Messrs. Guinness approached Bord na Móna with that proposal. Bord na Móna were, of course, interested and very willing to participate but they found their statutory powers were not adequate to enable them to do so. The purpose of this Bill is to provide them with the necessary powers.

Microbiology is an important science with wide applications in the medical, agricultural and chemical fields. It is generally agreed that research in the microbiological field is at present inadequately covered in this country. Bord na Móna and Messrs. Guinness regard it as important that such research should be undertaken on a bigger scale and that it should be established on a practical basis with clearly defined objectives. The main purpose of the research, which will be conducted at University College, Dublin, is the study of industrial and soil microbiology applied to turf, that is to say, to investigate the activities of micro-organisms which might be used to promote chemical changes in peat and thereby extend its uses as an industrial raw material. Research of that nature must necessarily be fundamental and, in order to pursue it properly, it is necessary to avail of the conditions and atmospheres of university life.

In addition to research, courses will be conducted for students. I am not holding out any prospect of spectacular results at an early date. They are not to be expected. It is only by such scientific work that major discoveries are made. Peat is an organic substance, as everybody knows, and it is generally true to say that all organic chemicals can be produced from it. The scope for research activity in peat problems is, therefore, very wide and on that account it would not be possible to give any indication at this stage of the lines along which work at University College will proceed.

There is, of course, in existence the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards. The research work contemplated in the present proposal will consist principally of pure research and will be of a long-term nature and confined to a highly specialised field. The Institute for Industrial Research and Standards was set up to deal with specific practical problems arising in industry and in general the investigations undertaken by it are of a short-term nature. It would not be proper, therefore, that the institute should undertake the type of research envisaged by the promoters of the present project.

The initial cost of the establishment of the proposed Chair is estimated at £10,000 and the cost of maintenance and administration at about £6,000 per annum. It is the intention that the expenditure involved will be borne equally by Bord na Móna and Messrs. Guinness & Co. As I think there is no doubt whatever that the money will be well spent, I have no difficulty in recommending the Bill for the approval of the Seanad.

Dr. O'Donovan

Senator Hayes intended to express his appreciation of this Bill but he was called away and has asked me to do it for him. Before I go on to say the few words I have to say I should like to refer to the technical reason why the Bill was introduced. There is a difference of opinion as to whether you should have a company or a board for State enterprises. Personally, I am all in favour of having boards, but it just illustrates what happens if you have to extend the powers of a board. You have to bring in a new Act, whereas in the case of a company you can do it by amending the memorandum and articles of association. On the whole, I think that for State enterprises the board form of organisation is the better. For one thing, it is far easier for people who are establishing a new enterprise to put it into operation if it is done by means of a board rather than by means of a company, but we have the slight exception now that the Oireachtas has to do a little work in this case.

The Bill gives power to Bord na Móna to do certain things, either alone or in co-operation with others. Actually, Bord na Móna has, in co-operation with the Guinness Company, set up a Chair of Microbiology in University College, Dublin. A chair of that sort has been set up in other countries from time to time, and I do remember one occasion before the war when a Chair in International Relations was offered, which was never established, by a British industrialist, but this is the first example of a chair being established by a private industrial firm in this country, a firm with a history of 200 years in Ireland, together with one of our State enterprises, and it is a very happy form of co-operation.

As has been said by Deputies in the Dáil on behalf of the Opposition Parties, there is necessity for considerable research. As the Minister hinted here to-day, you cannot be sure of getting out as much as you put into an enterprise of this sort, but to quote a current song, with a little bit of luck you might get out a good deal more.

In any event, it is a pleasure to find this chair being established in University College, Dublin, one of the university colleges with which I am associated. The college has already expressed its thanks to those who have provided the funds and I am sure that as the years pass they will not be dissatisfied with the progress of this research chair. The occupant of the chair will be working with many other people in cognate subjects, in an atmosphere in which it will be possible to get the greatest possible amount of advice from people who will have contact with him on the problems which will arise. The Minister is to be congratulated, not for the first time, for an original job of work in being associated with this Bill. I am glad to welcome it on behalf of the Fine Gael Party.

Professor Quinlan

I, too, have pleasure in welcoming this Bill. I welcome it as a very forward step, one that gives great hope for our people. We live in an age of science. The strength of our country is measured very largely by the way in which we apply our science and the way in which we use the skill of our people so that their skill may be united with the work of science in developing our nation.

In other countries, research has been greatly helped by private enterprise. The Rockefeller family and the other great families of America have used much of their wealth for extending research. That in latter days has taken on the company style and we see the emergence of what is called sponsored research where groups or organisations give money to encourage research in a particular field. The State, while it can supply a large proportion of the amount required for research, can never spark research like the individual contribution from organisations and associations. In that respect, I might mention that we have lagged behind other countries considerably in the willingness of our moneyed people and corporations to invest money in research. We also lag behind in the willingness of our graduates to turn back to their universities and give the country the benefit of their learning. However, research is an undertaking from which you cannot look for immediate dividends but the dividends are always very much larger than any business calculation would expect.

There is, however, one feature of the Bill which I think is rather restrictive and indicates a rather narrow outlook on research. It is that this is what we might call a practical Bill. It is evidently aimed at getting results on turf and turf products and by-products, so that the research must have some bearing on that. The Bill would be much better if it gave wider powers, just simply to enable Bord na Móna to sponsor research. Admittedly, at the start at any rate, such sponsoring would be directed into products that have an obvious relationship with turf, but we must remember that what is practical to us to-day may not be what will produce the practical results of tomorrow.

We should always think of the picture of the Cavendish Laboratory in the thirties when Professor Walton was there as a student. At that time, the physicists were just amusing themselves playing around with little atoms while the chemists were really the bad boys of the period. They were charged with having lent their skills to promoting war. They created poison gas. They were the enemies of humanity. The physicists were just harmless eccentrics working at the mysteries of the atom, but certainly that could not influence the course of humanity; yet 15 years afterwards you had the atomic bomb. In other words, you must take a broad outlook on research. You can never specifically specify where it is to lead. You must simply trust that the man in charge of it, by following along his bent from one discovery to another, will ultimately produce something that is for the benefit of the nation and of the world as a whole.

Consequently, I hesitate to suggest amending the Bill, but I would make the suggestion to the Minister that it could be widened so that we would not find it necessary in ten or 15 years' time to have another Bill to give additional powers for the type of research that Bord na Móna can sponsor. It might be better to give them a blanket permission at the start. Such blanket permission would be well included in Bills setting up State boards which we set up in this country. After all, a little investment fund by C.I.E. at present might pay very big dividends in the future. That applies to many of our companies. The E.S.B. is one that is obvious, and also the Sugar Company and the Army. In other countries, especially in America, the Army is one of the greatest patrons of the sciences, developing and giving grants for research in projects that are theoretically supposed to have some connection with or be of utility to the Army, but in practice just a means of sponsoring research. Above all, we have in this country our co-operative creameries. They, too, ought to take a forward-looking view on research, and with the emergence of the Agricultural Institute, perhaps may act as sponsors in that direction. We are this year spending £1,400,000 on subsidising butter exports.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I am afraid that is outside this Bill, which is in connection with research.

Professor Quinlan

I just wanted to make the point that 1 per cent. of that subsidy, £14,000, would be quite a contribution to research. With these points, I would again welcome the Bill, and hope that it is the beginning of this forward and progressive outlook by all our organisations and bodies on the value of research; and I suggest to the Minister that he might widen the scope of the present Bill if possible so as not to make it restrictive.

Professor Stanford

I should just like to say as a representative of the other university of the Republic that we very much welcome this Bill. The keynote of it is co-operation between big boards and the university and the Government. I should just like to say that if there is any room for further co-operation Dublin University will be very happy to provide it. I should like to mention, and it may be a practical suggestion, that Dublin University, that is, Trinity College, has now acquired a large experimental farm in County Louth with very considerable acreage which we hope to use for experimental work and research work of this kind. It is possible that these recently opened up fields may be useful in the research work of this chair. I should like to emphasise that we are very eager to co-operate. A Bill of this kind is welcome to all university men, and I should like to congratulate the Minister and University College, Dublin, and the boards and firms putting up the money on this excellent piece of co-operation.

Mr. Burke

The introduction of this Bill this evening is somewhat epoch-making, because it is the first time we had the opportunity of sponsoring an engagement in fundamental research in this country. It is a facet of science that small countries like Ireland generally have not the resources to engage in. That the greatest of our industries should be associated with one of our State-sponsored companies in establishing in our National University a Chair of Microbiology is very heartening. I was interested in reading to-day in a paper known as Liberty a criticism of private industry. Considering what Messrs. Guinness have done in private industry and the way that they have co-operated with Bord na Móna in providing £500,000 for the establishment of two briquette-making factories as well as their latest help to endow this chair, the criticism by the editor of Liberty in his article “Democracy” in the present issue, No. 7, for July, 1958, is untimely.

I want to say further that industry in this country will probably want to help more in the development stage and in the application stage of science rather than in the fundamental science which is suggested in this. Recently, when I attended the opening of a progeny-testing station in Cork, which is the scientific approach to another problem of agriculture, the President of University College, Cork, told me that the industrial firms in Cork had been very helpful to him in technological and other schemes which he had on hands in the practical application of the fundamental research done in other countries and being interpreted to our needs in Ireland.

If good results come from the research made as envisaged in this Bill our peat resources may be put to very useful economic advantage, and that type of substance seems to be in greater abundance in our country than in any other country of its size in Europe. I want to congratulate the Minister on being associated with this Bill. He has the wisdom to see what is wanted, and we wish him well. In any measure of this sort, we will give him every help and consideration that we can to speed those measures through Parliament.

Mr. Murphy

I want to say very briefly that I welcome this Bill. I welcome it as an indication of co-operation between a very efficient nationalised undertaking and an equally efficient private enterprise undertaking. It is a very happy marriage and it is a pity that other privately-owned undertakings are not so advanced in their thinking as Messrs. Guinness, but we hope that this will be a good example to them. I recommend the measure and I hope it will lead to very good results.

Mr. S. Lemass

In regard to the specific point raised by Senator Quinlan, I should point out that Bord na Móna already have power, under Section 19 of the Turf Development Act, 1946, to carry out research and experiments, but they had not power to endow chairs or lectureships. That is why amending legislation is required. Indeed, Bord na Móna have done a very great deal of very useful experimental and research work at their station in Newbridge, and I would encourage all Senators, on their way home from this meeting tomorrow, to visit the exhibition in progress there at present which, I think, is of really enthralling interest.

I agree that we could get a great deal more of this type of joint activity from industrial concerns in this country. I am sure we are all very appreciative of the initiative which Messrs. Guinness took in this matter. We hope that their example will encourage others to similar co-operative ventures. Perhaps it may help them to come to that conclusion to remind them that, in the Finance Act of last year, tax concessions were given in respect of covenanted annual payments to universities and colleges for research purposes. The fact that these concessions are available to them, along with this excellent example from Messrs. Guinness, will, we hope, produce many similar cases in the future.

Question put and agreed to.