Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 7 Jul 1965

Vol. 59 No. 3

Shannon Free Airport Development Company Limited (Amendment) Bill, 1965 (Certified Money Bill): Second and Subsequent Stages.

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

Minister for Transport and Power (Mr. Childers)

The purpose of the Bill is to amend and extend the Shannon Free Airport Development Company Limited Acts, 1959 to 1963.

The Bill is designed to provide for the further financing of the Shannon Free Airport Development Company Limited by extending the limits on investment contained in the current legislation. The Bill provides for:

(1) An increase from £4,000,000 to £6,000,000 in the aggregate of the amounts which the Minister for Finance may subscribe in taking up shares of the company;

(2) An increase from £2,000,000 to £3,000 000 in the aggregate amount of grants, voted annually, which may be made to the company, and

(3) An increase from £2,000,000 to £3,000,000 in the existing statutory limit on repayable advances by the Minister for Finance for the provision of houses and community services.

The Development Company was set up to promote the increased use of Shannon Airport for passenger and freight traffic and for tourist, commercial and industrial purposes. The main activities of the company have been the attraction of industries to the airport and more recently the development of Shannon as an international warehousing centre.

Share capital subscribed to the company is used for the provision of factory buildings. These are normally rented to the occupiers but factory bays may also be purchased outright or may be built on sites leased from the company. Repayable advances are used for the provision of dwellings and community services for the purposes of the Industrial Estate. The houses are provided by the company at reasonable rents or to purchase, and developed sites are also made available for persons wishing to build their own houses, and for speculative building. The grant-in-aid moneys are applied towards meeting the company's running expenses and providing financial assistance to industries including grants towards factory buildings, new machinery and the training of workers.

The finances provided to the company under existing legislation up to 31st March, 1965, were as follows:

Share capital	£3,423,000
Repayable advances	£1,878,000
Grant-in-aid	£1,605,500

The balances remaining under existing statutory provisions are therefore:

Share capital	£577,000
Repayable advances	£122,000
Grant-in-aid	£394,500

It is expected that these balances will be exhausted at an early date and it is necessary, therefore, to promote amending legislation to provide for the further financing of the company so as to enable it to plan ahead and to enter into commitments with industrialists and others. The revised limits proposed under the new legislation should suffice until about 1968 when it is proposed to afford the House a further opportunity of reviewing the progress made by the company.

The company has been making steady progress in attracting new industries to Shannon. At 3lst March, 1965, there were 14 manufacturing and ten trading concerns in operation at the Airport. Thirty-two standard bays and three small bays were occupied by these firms on a rental basis and two firms were in occupation of their own factories—one built with the aid of a grant from the company and the other purchased from the company after allowance bad been made for the equivalent of a building grant from the company. The output of the existing factories, practically all of which is exported, includes pianos and floor maintenance equipment, jersey fabric and fashion garments, office machines and equipment, diamond drilling equipment and electronic components, and the range of services provided includes warehousing and freight forwarding, data processing, public relations and management consultancy.

Eight warehousing units of 3,750 sq. ft. each have been constructed and two more are being constructed as part of the company's plan to encourage warehousing, freight consolidation, freight forwarding and redistribution of goods at the airport and to establish Shannon as a centre for the distribution of goods in international trade. At 3lst March, 1965, three of the units were occupied and five were allocated to prospective tenants, three of which were previously located in temporary premises at the airport. Although terminal freight at the airport in 1964 rose by 31 per cent to 4,182 tons from 3,196 tons in 1963, freight generated by the Industrial Estate—which was about one-fifth of the total—was down by about nine per cent compared with 1963. However, in the first three months of this year Industrial Estate freight was up by nearly 70 per cent compared with the first quarter of 1964. The development of terminal freight traffic is difficult mainly because of the great disparity at present existing between air and surface rates but as this gap narrows it is expected that the volume of air shipments will increase substantially. The encouragement of warehousing is expected to give a considerable fillip to air cargo shipments. The company is also active in securing improved cargo rates, improved services and speedy clearance at destinations and in the publicising of the facilities available by air.

Employment has been growing at a satisfactory rate since the Industrial Estate was set up. From a figure of 453 at the end of March, 1961, it rose to 1,151 at March 1962, to 1,542 at March, 1963, and to 2,109 at March, 1964. At 3lst March, 1965 employment had risen to 2,927, of whom 1,538 were male, and the increase of over 800 in the past year is most satisfactory. The Second Programme for Economic Expansion envisages that about 5,000 persons will be employed in the Industrial Estate by 1970. On the basis of progress to date this target should be achieved always provided, of course, that a sufficient labour force continues to be available. No immediate difficulties are anticipated in finding male employees as trainees or unskilled workers though some problems are being experienced in finding men in suitable age groups. Skilled men who have emigrated are being attracted to return. Special consideration is being given to the provision of accommodation for female workers who may wish to reside at ihe airport. Industries employing predominantly male labour are those which are most encouraged and the projected community development should ensure the establishment of families in the estate. A notable feature in the development of the Industrial Estate has been the rapid rate of expansion of some of the firms and, in fact, the four major established firms have been mainly responsible for the inerease in employment. Many of the firms have plans for further expansion and one of them now employing about 780 people envisages a work force of up to 2,000 by 1969.

So far, the importance of the Shannon project has been seen principally in the employment which it has provided and which continues to grow, and in the increasing business at the airport itself, where once the indications seemed to be that traffic might decline to a level which would mean virtual closure of the airport and widespread unemployment. Another aspect of its great national importance can now be measured because Córas Tráchtála recently completed a study of exports from the Shannon Free Airport Industrial Estate during 1964. During the calendar year 1964 £14m. worth of manufactured goods were exported—equivalent to 20 per cent of total Irish manufactured exports or to 25 per cent of total manufactured exports from the rest of the country outside Shannon. It is clear also that the rate of output in Shannon is rising more rapidly than in the country as a whole, so that this proportion can confidently be expected to increase. From this aspect alone—the contribution it is making to the national balance of trade—the Shannon project merits full support.

Although the rate of introduction of new firms has not been as great as the rate of expansion of established ones there has been no decrease in the number of inquiries being received by the company from industrial interests. While a certain amount of factory accommodation must be provided in anticipation of actual demand, factories are built on the basis of likely demand and building programme are sanctioned on this basis. The company's factory building programme as incorporated in the Second Programme envisages a construction rate of eight factory bays each year to 1969-70. The company's programme to attract new industries is being promoted in the US, heretofore the most fruitful market, the UK and Europe. Because of their dependence on export markets, the success and expansion possibilities of industries are particularly susceptible to changes in international trading conditions, particularly the imposition of new tariffs such as the 15 per cent UK levy or restrictions imposed by other countries on investment abroad. While every effort is made to ensure that industries establishing at Shannon will be viable, there is no absolute safeguard against the risk of a set-back arising out of circumstances beyond control of the company and of the industries themselves. To cater for the smaller company with perhaps limited capital, the company has arranged for the construction of a number of small factory units. It is, of course, impossible to foresee with any certainty the extent of future development but the proposed increase in the share capital to £6m. should be sufficient for the next two or three years.

As the Industrial Estate expands, the demand for accommodation both for married and single people at the airport grows and the company is meeting this demand by providing houses to rent or purchase and also by providing developed sites for speculative building or on which persons may build their own houses. It is necessary to strike a balance between over-ambitious planning and under-planning. It is important that workers should not be discouraged from taking up employment at the airport because of lack of suitable accommodation. This is especially so in the case of key workers in new industries. It has been the policy to provide housing at the airport in line with likely demand and the company's housing schemes are planned on this basis.

It is recognised that community development must be maintained in line with development on the industrial side. The present resident population at Shannon is about 1,200 and the amenities include shops, primary schools, banking and postal facilities, a recreation centre and a public house. Shannon has been selected as a location for one of the new comprehensive schools. It is estimated that the population will have risen to about 3,700 by 1970 and the company's building programme is proceeding on this basis. This programme is incorporated in the Second Programme which envisages a construction rate of about 80 houses a year.

Up to 3lst March, 1965, expenditure on housing amounted to £1.82m., all of which had been provided by way of repayable advances. 292 houses and 137 flats had been completed. Almost all of these houses and flats were either occupied or allocated. A further 26 houses were under construction. Rents are fixed in relation to what the tenants can reasonably be expected to pay and a subsidy is provided from the annual Transport and Power Vote to meet the difference between the rent paid and the economic rent. The economic rents are calculated on the full cost of construction after deduction of the equivalent of the normal housing grants available to private persons under the Housing Acts. Provision is made in the rental agreements for inereases in the rents as wages generally increase thus reducing the amount of subsidy required. In June, 1964, the rents were increased by seven per cent. Tenants desiring to buy their own houses are encouraged to do so.

In addition to houses provided by the company for rent and sale, 20 sites have been developed by the company for private construction of executive type houses and building has commenced on six of these sites. A significant advance is the undertaking by a private builder of a scheme of about sixty three and four-bedroomed houses for private sale on a site provided by the company and this is one of the most encouraging signs of the establishment of a permanent community at Shannon. However, the bulk of the housing requirements of workers on the Industrial Estate will have to be financed out of State funds for some years to come.

The company have been authorised to purchase additional land in pursuance of their development plans as embodied in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion. The additional land which also provides for planned expansion beyond 1970 will be used for the building of houses, a town centre (commercial and shopping, civic and cultural and car parking), the provison of educational and institutional facilities and open parkland containing recreational facilities.

The company are co-operating fully with the planning authorities in the co-ordination of development plans for the Limerick/Clare region in which Shannon plays such a significant part and the company's own plans will be dovetailed into the overall planning for the region as a whole.

The success of the company"s tourism promotion activities in conjuuction with other promoting bodies including Bord Fáilte, the Mid-Western Tourism Organisation, and the air companies is reflected in the increase in terminal air traffic at the airport in 1964. The growth in this traffic more than offset the decrease in transit passenger traffic so that the combined total rose by almost 50,000 to 380,000, an increase of 13 per cent over the previous year. New services on the Shannon-Paris, Shannon-Manchester and Shannon-London routes, the new transatlantic turn-round service being introduced by Trans World Airlines and increased frequencies by Aerlínte and other operators should also provide a very considerable fillip to the growth of passenger traffic through the airport.

During 1964 the company's Mediaeval Tour and Banquet attracted 20,000 people, the great majority of whom were tourists, including North American visitors to Europe encouraged to stop over at Shannon. So successful has the Mediaeval Banquet become that capacity at Bunratty is now nearing saturation point and the company has been forced to look around for other venues to cater for the overflow. The establishment of the Folk Village beside Bunratty has added greatly to the attractions of the Castle and 62,000 people visited the Castle and Folk Park in 1964.

The Bill also provides for an increase from £2m. to £3m. in the aggregate amount of grant-in-aid which may be paid to the company. These grants provide for the running expenses of the company and also enable the company to pay grants to industrialists for buildings, machinery and the training of workers. Grants paid to the company to 3lst March, 1965 amounted to £1,605,500. In addition the company received £654,000 by way of rents and other income. £1,387,000 was used by the company for promotion and administrative expenses and grants were made to industrialists as follows:

Machinery	£525,000
Factory premises	£127,000
Training of workers	£181 000

It will be seen that the confidence which I expressed in the continued I progress of the company when recommending the 1963 legislation for the approval of the House has been fully justified and that in fact it has become necessary to inerease the finances provided for in the 1963 Act earlier than was then contemplated. The increase in the limits proposed is necessary to enable the company to fulfil its obligations under the Second Programme for Economic Expansion. The company must have adequate finances to proceed with its programme and it is accordingly necessary to promote amending legislation to enable these finances to be provided. The outline which I have given of the progress made by the company to date affords ample proof of the continuing value to the national economy of the Shannon enterprise and I am convinced that the additional finances now sought will prove to be a prudent investment in the national interest.

I recommend the Bill for the approval of the House.

Mr. Garret FitzGerald

I think there is general agreement on the fact thai the Shannon project has been generally a success. It has not perhaps been a success quite in the way originally envisaged. The project of establishing this company and developing industry there was thought of originally as a means of trying to preserve Shannon Airport, and particularly its terminal freight and passenger traffic, from running down as the transit traffic tended to disappear with the development of jet aircraft. This was the original somewhat defensive approach. It quickly became clear, however, that almost without realising or intending it, this concern had hit on something that had a great potential. As we have seen since, though despite the figures the Minister has given, up to this year, the terminal freight traffic has not developed as had been hoped, the development of industry and employment there, even though not using air transport facilities to as great an extent as was expected, has been encouraging.

I do not think it is generally realised how substantial an enterprise Shannon is and it is only in looking over some of the facts and figures in connection with this debate that I realised fully what is involved. If one takes into account the employment given at the airport by the airport activities themselves, and the employment in construction which is a continuing process at this place, the total number of people at work is something like 5 300. There are, in fact, only seven large towns in Ireland in which there are more people at work than in Shannon. In terms of employment, it has become the eighth largest centre, offering more employment than Sligo or Bray or any other town of that size. It is encouraging to see from the figures the Minister has given that the growth of employment over the year 1964 has been moving even more rapidly than previously, with an increase of 800 in the industrial employment there.

The housing side of this project did at an early stage give rise to difficulties. I would be interested to hear from the Minister whether he is happy that the supply of houses and accommodation has caught up with demand. At the beginning, although the very fact of launching this project showed imagination, this imagination did not run originally on the part of the Government to the provision of houses as well as factories. I think the company realised this in the early stages and tried to persuade the Government that if they were to have substantial numbers of people employed, it would be necessary to have some housing there additional to that in Limerick or Ennis. A long time elapsed, however, in regard to this housing project. For a period there was a bottleneck threatening to hold up the development of industrial employment there. There are now about 450 dwellings available with about 1,200 people in them. I should like to hear from the Minister whether he is happy with the position now, and that there is no longer danger of a battleneck in regard to houses.

The finances of this project are extremely complex and not at all easy to understand. There are, in fact, four different methods by which the Government help to finance it. One of these is the provision of a special grant by the Minister's Department in lieu of housing subsidies, which the Minister has referred to in his speech. This grant-in-aid, if I understand the Minister correctly, is the equivalent of the subsidy which the local authority would be paid for housing purposes.

I am wondering whether we have yet reached the stage where it is possible to evaluate the Shannon project, its results and its costs, on the basis of comparability with similar developments elsewhere. Owing to the fact that it is not a local authority itself and that those who are promoting and running it and building the houses are not in receipt of rates, owing to the complexity of the finances by way of share capital and two different types of grant-in-aid; and owing to the fact that it has developed rapidly it is difficult to evaluate the cost of the actual employment given. Because some of the cost is in relation to employment not yet available, it is hard for anybody without inside knowledge to assess how costly this project is. There is an impression that it is a relatively costly way to provide employment in Ireland and people have criticised it on this ground. Personally, I would not be inclined to take that line. A project of this kind which creates a new type of employment that might not have come to Ireland otherwise is worth paying something more for than would be warranted in other cases. As far as I can judge from the figures available in the company's report and in the Minister's speech, it is not possible to be clear yet as to how this compares with the cost of industrial development in a traditional way in any town or village elsewhere in the country.

There is one feature of Shannon which gives it an interest as an example for other purposes. This company promoted its own development. It is unique in this respect. I am afraid none of our local authorities has yet turned itself into a development corporation, just as our Government Departments have not yet taken up the Taoiseach's call to become development corporations. Even less than Government Departments, have local authorities been able to adapt themselves to this new role so far. The Shannon company is unique in the role it is playing in developing the wealth of this whole area.

It is arguable that, in fact, although its problems are in some respects unique, it has provided a useful precedent for the kind of authority that might be needed and might be useful, if we are to develop our countryside, and particularly our areas outside Dublin, by means of the establishment of industrial development centres. This is something which has been before the Government for a long time, and one would have thought that in view of the evident success of Shannon, the Government would have been sympathetic to this idea of development centres, would have taken it up and pushed it ahead, particularly as it is now, I think, three years—certainly two years—since the proposal to establish development centres at places other than Shannon was endorsed unanimously by a committee comprising representatives of the Department of Finance, the Department of Industry and Commerce, the trade unions, the Federated Union of Employers, the Federation of Irish Industries and the Industrial Development Authority.

In fact, despite that unanimous recommendation—and there must be very few things upon which it has been possible to get such unanimity—the Government hastily referred it to another committee which after several years reported to the Government and the Government's first reaction to that report, which has not yet been published, was to say equally hastily that it would take a long time to consider it, This gives rise to the legitimate suspicion that the second recommendation has been made to the Government along the same lines as the first but that the Government are still not prepared to draw the logical conclasion from the success of the Shannon experiment and approve the development of industrial centres elsewhere which would help in the long-term decentralisation which everyone would like to see but which we have not yet been able to achieve.

One figure in the Minister's speech struck me very forcibly and I must admit it is a figure I find very surprising. When I saw it first, I thought it must be a mistake but it obviously must be correct, as it is in the Minister's speech—it is, the figure of £14 million exposts from Shannon. That is the figure which emerged from a survey conducted by Córas Tráchtála, and it was when I saw it in the Córas Tráchtála report that I thought it was a mistake. Apart from that and from the work dane by the Limerick Junior Chamber of Commerce which compiled some extremely useful reports, no data are available from any other source, but it had appeared that the value of the exports was something of the order of £5 million. It is certainly astonishing to find that it has jumped to the figure of £14 million which as the Minister says is more than one-fifth of the total Industrial exports of the country.

I wonder is there anything artificial about this figure, taking it to be correct? I know that one industry there is doing something with industrial diamonds. To what extent, I wonder, is that figure swollen by the high value of the input and output of diamonds, whereas the value of the percentage added at Shannon might not be all that great? I wonder if the Minister could give some indication of the order of magnitude of the value added or the net output of those industries, which is the only true measure of economic activity. Figures of gross output and sales can be very misleading because of the enormous variations there can be.

It is important to have some idea of how big a role Shannon is playing in our industrial activity. This is something we may not get accurately from this figure. The very fact that we have not had a figure until now for exports from Shannon is one of the more disturbing features of this operation. It is extraordinary to think that as regards one-fifth of the value of exports from our country, there are no statistics and we are in no position to estimate them. Unless somebody, either Córas Tráchtála or the Limerick Junior Chamber of Commerce, does a survey, we do not know what the exports are.

One of the attractions of Shannon, as is pointed out to industrialists, is that it is a place where there is no red tape, no documentation, and you do not have to fill in any forms. This is obviously a point of attraction and it is not a thing that we would like to get away from. I would not wish to try to introduce red tape where we have in one instance managed to avoid it, but I do not think it is satisfactory in connection with the Second Programme that in respect of large elements in our exports, there are no statistics available, and that our export statistics as published in the Statistical Abstract do not include Shannon, unless the goods in fact move in transit through Limerick, when they come in as goods in transit.

I should like the Minister to tell us what progress has been made in this matter. It is considerably disturbing, and not encouraging to any economic programme, not to have these statistics available. Has any progress been made towards finding a solution which would not take away from the advantage of Shannon as a place where industrialists do not have to fill up endless forms but which would enable us to know what our exports are? It is ludicrous at this stage of our whole economic development, which so greatly depends on our industrial exports, that we are the only country in the world which does not know what it is exporting unless somebody does a special survey from time to time. This is something which we need to look at.

In the case of some Irish industries, it is impossible to get any picture of the overall performance of the industry because of this problem of Shannon. I know of one industry where the output of a firm in Shannon is included in the output figures of the entire industry but not in the export figures. The result is that the figures one thus gets for consumption in Ireland are completely inaccurate. Industries are in a position where they are not able to evaluate their own contribution to the Second Programme because the information is not available. This needs to be looked at and I would be very much interested to hear what the Minister has to say upon that point.

One aspect of Shannon which is a little unsatisfactory is the reports from time to time that certain foreign firms have not been prepared to work with trade unions in the way in which employers in this country are used to doing. It is understandable that foreign firms establishing themselves at Shannon or elsewhere may find some of our customs different from theirs but at Shannon in particular there seem to be several cases of firms, excellent employers—I do not think there can be any criticism of them as employers— whose attitude is paternalist and who in fact almost seemed to be prepared to overpay the workers in order to get out of having anything to do with trade unions. This is somewhat unsatisfactory, and I wonder if anything has been done to encourage those firms to adapt themselves to Irish circumstances in which trade unions play an active, and in many respects, extremely useful role and to work with them and secure much better results as regards productivity than can be achieved by working against them.

Those are the only points I would like to make on this. It is a pleasure to support this measure. I had some association with this project in its early stages and I am naturally delighted to see that it is a continuing success. It is a fact that if any industry at Shannon gets into difficulties or disappears, as is bound to happen from time to time, this gets large headlines, which seem to be much larger than the ones it got when it came. That, I suppose, is natural. Any figures that the Minister has been able to give us for the increasing employment in the development estate make it clear that it is a success. I would urge him to draw from this the logical conclusion and press the Government not to hold up any longer, as in fact they have been doing over the past two years, further industrial expansion by being unwilling, for reasons not explained, to face up to the possibility of exploiting through the establishment of development centres the potentialities for industrial and commercial growth held by other areas—a method recognised in all the other countries where this matter has been looked into, especially in many European countries, and which have been recognised in this country by all the interests involved, but which the Government alone seem unable to see and unwilling to face up to. The logical conclusion should be drawn from the success of Shannon, and I hope the Minister will persuade the Government to draw that conclusion very soon.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

I cannot pretend to have any very direct knowledge of this scheme, certainly nothing like the knowledge of Senator FitzGerald, but I agree with much of what he has said. I was interested in the Minister's opening remarks, some of which were not only informative but exciting. It seems to me that we have here a lot of experiment in what might be called State capitalism, or indirect State capitalism, which ought, if it is properly used, to prove extremely useful later on for the practice and experience of the future socialisation of the area and, one would hope, of the various successful factories built up here.

There are some points on which I should like some amplification. I notice the Minister said that the company is buying further land and I think he mentioned the acreage. I would like to ask him, if he would not mind giving it, to give the full figure of the present acreage involved and the amount of the area that is to be added. I would also be interested in knowing whether any option will be taken on land outside the area which it is intended immediately to purchase.

One frequently finds in this country and in other countries that fringe land goes up in value by reason of community effort which has nothing to do with the owners of the land at all. It is regarded as quite normal for the owners of land outside a piece of community development to see the price they can expect to get for their land go soaring up and being quite unrelated to the actual value of the land or to any effort they have made to increase its value. In other words, it is perhaps the supreme example in this country and others of unearned increments. I wonder whether it has been anticipated by the company, as sometimes it should be anticipated, I am sure, by corporations and county councils, that where a community effort is very big, private speculators and private property owners collect large sums in unearned increments. I should like to see this offset to some extent by allowing for options on property in further areas of land not immediately to be developed.

I am a little curious about who owns that land that is acquired. I think I am right in assuming it is the company in whom the land is vested and consequently the buildings built on this land belong to the company. The company derives rent from it. I hope I am right in assuming, therefore, that the concept of ground rent is wiped out in this area, that there is no such thing as ground rent. If I am right in assuming this, this is a very sharp pointer to the rest of the country because one of the evils in this country is the concept of ground rent which continues despite resolutions at ard fheiseanna, county councils and various other bodies for the past 40 years deploring the general effect of ground rent. I take it, in this part of Ireland, ground tents are unknown. If that is so, I want to compliment the company on this. I want to compliment the Minister on his presentation of the company and for the record he gives to us of the general community planning as well as the more specific planning of factories and commercial and industrial development.

I shall not, unfortunately, be free to take the opportunity kindly given for us to go down next Friday, and see some of what is being done in this area. I have not got first-hand knowledge of it but I would express the hope that what the Minister has said about general community planning will be developed and increased. The Minister mentioned primary schools. He mentioned a recreational hall also. I think he said, and I would be justified in assuming, there are other recreational facilities, apart from the public house which he also mentioned. My hope is there will be sports grounds and playgrounds for children.

We fail, very often, in our ordinary community development, to provide recreational facilities, playgrounds, swimming pools and so on at the same tempo as we do in regard to dwelling houses. In Dublin we have fallen down badly in regard to matters of this kind. My hope is that this again is an example for the rest of the country. I hope the community planning at Shannon Free Airport Development Area will be continued in the rest of the country.

While listening to the Minister, I was reminded of a very exciting experience I had in 1962 when I visited one of the Dutch polder developments in the new town of Emmelord, which was started in 1942. It seems quite astonishing to me that this piece of land, which came into being in 1942, should look as if it had been planned, designed and developed for 150 years. Everything was thought of from the beginning. It was very striking, in 1962, that you could find 20 year old trees growing because they had been set down in 1942 when they first began to develop this land. I take this as one small symbol of the overall nature of comprehensive planning and design of which the Dutch are masters. This type of community planning could be followed here.

Senator FitzGerald made a suggestion that when we are developing on community lines in this way, we should go abroad and learn from similar developments in other countries. I fully agree with him. Holland is a country, above all other centres, from which we could learn a lot. Holland has made wonderful community developments in its own territory, without grabbing from its neighbours. It is really astonishing how successful they have been in the way they have developed for the benefit of the community at large. I feel we could learn a great deal from the sort of community development that is done there.

The scale on which they work in Holland is of course much bigger than it is here. The size of their farms is different from the size of farms here but their towns and villages are somewhat of the same size. They have been much better developed than we have. When we develop a community centre, we should not have a row of shops, but we should have a very fine desiened shopping centre. We should not be content merely to have houses thrown higgledy-piggledy but we should have a well thought out community centre right from the start.

I hope this is what is being done at Shannon. If that is an over-optimistic hope, I would like to make a plea for further development and planning. We should take the opportunity, in this situation, of experimenting. The community development, as Senator FitzGerald has pointed out, which is being carried out at Shannon could be extremely valuable to us in other parts of the Republic. We should be very glad to salute the Minister and the company in having, so far, seized the chances offered and we should encourage them to go further. They have had a marvellous chance of trying out and learning about community planning about which we are very far behind in some other parts of Ireland. We are singularly ignorant in Dublin about community development of this kind.

I am appalled by some of the so-called developments around the city of Dublin. I hope we will not be content merely to accept the modern planning at Shannon but we will encourage people to take chances with regard to experiments, not only of their own design but of other free designs. We should be prepared to encourage our urban and county councils to go down and learn from the mistakes that will have been made at Shannon and, as I said at the beginning, I hope we will encourage further experiment.

Mr. Rooney

I should like to mention that I also had the privilege of visiting Holland and I saw the place, Emmelord, mentioned by Senator Sheehy Skeffington. Certainly it is the greatest example I know of community development. Apart from all the planning that was done, apparently the first thing they built was a clock tower and the town—or the city of the future, I suppose—will centre around that clock tower. It is a remarkable fact that this place, which is a growing town now about 20 years old, is approximately 14 feet below sea level. It has been won back from the sea by the Dutch people who are masters of this technique. I agree with Senator Sheehy Skeffington that when it comes to community planning and development, the Shannon Free Airport area offers possibly more than any other place in Ireland. We have already seen wonderful progress in Shannon because of the fact, I am sure, that the scope for expansion was unhindered by the red tape associated with development in other areas.

There are a few points I want to raise with the Minister, and he may be able to give me details when replying. I am wondering, for instance, what is the area of land surrounding this Shannon Free Airport area which is capable of the kind of industrial development and expansion which is under way at the moment, because if it is substantial, the general plan could be made out even at this stage, I think. Senator Sheehy Skeffington once more indicated that vested interests in the immediate vicinity of this type of development are inclined to hinder expansion and to interfere with the possibility of worthwhile development. The Shannon Free Airport area is one place where these obstacles are almost nil, and I hope things will continue that way.

The Minister surprised me when he mentioned the value of the exports put out from this area, particularly in relation to the total value of industrial goods exported from this country. He has demonstrated that it is certainly a worthwhile contribution to our economy. We must face the fact, however, that the development which we see under way now is not the type of development which was envisaged at the beginning. At the beginning, it was intended to be a freight terminal, more or less, to encourage freight.

Now we see industries and enterprises of different types under way.

What we have seen happening in the Shannon Airport area could, of course, have happened around the town of Ennis or the city of Limerick, as it has now transpired. As I have said, at first it was hoped that it would be more or less a freight terminal, and that there would be fantastic expansion on that line, but that did not occur. I should also like to mention that I think the time has come for some planning to be done in relation to Dublin Airport so far as the location of worthwhile factories is concerned. It seems that the only prospect for expansion is at Swords, which is some miles away from Dublin Airport, but I believe there could be some planning in that respect to encourage the establishment of factories nearer to the airport because there is a swing towards air freight and air travel.

I wonder is the trend at Shannon the same as it has been in our other industries. We know that the net volume of output from industry has fallen down to about four per cent compared with the 12 per cent some years ago. Similarly the Second Programme for Economic Expansion envisaged that by 1970 the number of persons at work would be approximately 1,330,000. That would require an increase of approximately 12,000 per year.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

If the Senator related his remarks more closely to the Bill, it would be helpful.

Mr. Rooney

I was just wondering is the trend at Shannon Airport in relation to industrial expansion so far as net output is concerned keeping in line with the trend which statistics show in relation to industry in general. A number of people have left the agricultural industry—approximately 38,000 in the past few years—and only 1,000 have gone into the industrial side. When the Minister is replying, I hope he will give us some idea of the possibilities in relation to Shannon Airport so far as the acreage available for this expansion is concerned.

I have calculated roughly that it has cost approximately £2,250 to put each worker into employment in this industrial development at Shannon Airport. I should be interesied to know whether the figure for putting workers into employment in industry in the remainder of the country is as high. Mine is an approximate figure, averaging out the details we have been given.

Generally speaking, I think we should be disappointed by the fact that at Shannon we have not attracted the kind of industry which involves a high proportion of male labour. At the moment the proportion of male and female labour at Shannon is 50-50 or thereabouts, which indicates clearly that the type of industry there is not on average heavy industry involving male labour.

When the Minister gave the number of enterprises, the number of factories established, the bays available for hire or rent, he did not give the nationalities of the promoters which would indicate to what extent we have Irish enterprise and to what extent we have foreign enterprise there. Such information, I believe, would give us an idea of the measure of attraction—for want of a better word—this scheme has for outside interests. I had the pleasure of visiting this place some years ago and was greatly impressed. I thought it was certainly a wonderful idea and that there had been great achievement there. I am sure any of us who will have the privilege of going there on Friday will be further impressed by the development that has taken place since then, considering that the number of people employed there has increased to about six times the number there some years ago when we visited that estate.

The arrangement whereby a substantial proportion of the money is made available here for the building of factories or bays which can be rented is, I think, excellent. I believe it is one that should be spread to other parts of the country. At the moment, of course, some enterprising financial interests have actually built factories which are available for renting to manufacturers and various enterprises. This is a sphere in which the State could take a greater part. We often notice at the present time the considerable expense to which manufacturers are put in either repairing or renovating their premises, or even building new factories where the old building has become inadequate or outdated in relation to modern needs. I feel the State should step in still further, as they are doing at Shannon Airport, to facilitate people who are prepared to engage in manufacturing industries in this country.

I believe, so far as the Second Programme for Economic Expansion is concerned, that this enterprise at Shannon Free Airport will be held up as an example of what can be achieved by planned development and careful financing, in the absence of impediments in relation to development which arise all too often in relation to these projects. I think the cost of sites and the tax elements which enter into development, particularly when there has already been some worthwhile community development, are actually hindering progress. It is difficult to envisage how a stop can be put to that kind of attitude because we have it, not alone in relation to industrial development and sites for factories, but in relation to housing in a far more acute state at the present time. At the same time, we may have to consider introducing some kind of legislation which will ensure that progress and community development, in either the industrial or domestic sphere, will not be interfered with by vested interests which take advantage of the successes which have already been achieved by some of these enterprises.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

Nationalise the land.

Mr. Rooney

Yes, I should like to end my remarks on that note.

Mr. Lenehan

Up to comparatively recent times, the only worthwhile exports we had in this country were cattle and beef. It is good to know that this is changing. Perhaps no single centre in this country has made a bigger or more rapid contribution to that change than the Shannon Free Airport zone. For that reason alone, any support which this House, or any member thereof, could give to the further development of that area is something well worth giving. It is unfortunate in an undeveloped country of this type that we are often inclined to lend our eyes and ears to the kind of thing one finds on the back of the front page of the Sunday newspapers. If one were for one moment to accept that kind of thing, we would have no development at Shannon or indeed development in any other part of the country, either.

Apart altogether from the question of an export trade, which is a very important matter, there is today the very important requirement of having a team of trained personnel within a restricted area where, should it happen that one type of industry goes out of business or closes down, the expansion within that area would be capable of taking on the people who became unemployed and capable also of utilising the services of trained personnel.

People coming to this country, especially industrialists, seem just to give us a call—something,in the line of going into a wake; going in and getting out as fast as one can. As matters stand today in a rapidly changing world where time is so valuable, people have not the time to travel throughout the country and see for themselves what we as a people are capable of doing. I feel any steps we could take to develop further the industries at Shannon would be steps well taken. There should be examples of our own type of native industry which could be seen by those people who just come in and pay us a fleeting visit. Even if they did not purchase, it would at least be a tremendous advertisement for us and people calling would see what we are capable of doing. In the minds of many foreigners we have a pretty bad name which we do not deserve, because, when we go to other countries, we show our true methods and value. We have shown that in England, America, Australia and other countries and we are quite capable of doing it in this country under proper direction and management.

In this modern age when air transport is a thing of the present and definitely a thing, of the future, it is important that we should have at Shannon a much greater development and that it should be the show-piece of our entire industrial development. We should be capable of demonstrating there in limited time to foreigners who come along to see our country, either for business purposes or purely as tourists, what we are capable of doing. That is something which would contribute enormously in the long run to our whole economic structure.

Nobody raises any objection at all as far as I know to people running out of the country to England, America or elsewhere to work for foreigners, but, coming from an area from which there has been an amount of emigration in the past, I have a different attitude. I think it is a much saner idea to take these foreigners in here and let them see our skill. That is a very important matter and we have no place more suitable for getting a scheme like that into operation than Shannon. Putting goods on a ship or a train nowadays is like going to Mass on a donkey. Air travel is developing fast and we are overlooking that fact. We are not sufficiently progressive at all in our attitude to this matter. In a few years with the nature of present day inventions it is possible that the great bulk of our transport will be by air. In such a case Shannon is the ideal location for this type of development. Shannon should be a showpiece for all types of Irish industrial concerns, even if we lose money on it. The money we lose now will pay considerable dividends in the not too distant future.

Apart altogether from the fact that such development at Shannon would be an attraction for tourists, as well as those passing through our country, it certainly would be a great boost to us as a people. We are very much inclined to adopt the attitude that everybody else can do better than us. It is only where these industries can be brought together where they can be seen in competition with one another that people get a clear view of what we are capable of doing. After all, we can produce, I think, the best drink in the world. We can produce a great many other things if we go to the trouble. At this stage of our development there is no better place than Shannon to show to the world in general what we are capable of doing. I certainly ask the Minister to have no hesitation whatever in taking every conceivable step he can towards developing that area as well as other areas in the west and throughout the country, and we will gain substantially from if.

Mr. McHugh

The Minister and his Department are deserving of congratulation for bringing in this Bill. The necessity for bringing it in indicates the amount of work the development company and the Department have done for Shannon. It shows the success of their efforts. The previous speakers and the Minister mentioned the various aspects of the work done at Shannon by the development company and I should like to refer briefly to two with which I am familiar. They are the Mediaeval Banquet and the Folk Park. Both of these are highly successful particularly the Mediaeval Banquet. The Mediaeval Banquet attracted many people and brought thousands of dollars to this country. It has been acclaimed by everybody who went there and saw it. I was there last weekend with some visitors. While they were not able to avail of the Banquet because they did not book in time, they were able to watch it from the balcony. They were amazed at the idea behind it and said that there should be some way by which it should be extended. Obviously, of course, we will not extend Bunratty Castle, but it would be a good idea in other places.

In connection with the Folk Park, I should like to mention something with which I am concerned. There is an ugly building close to the Folk Park. It is a co-operative creamery and it has become twice as ugly since it was developed. The building of a new road there has made it very evident to the public. I know that the creamery should be replaced by a modern building. The development company are anxious about that, too. Both are acting in good faith but each is suspicious of the other. The creamery are snspicious that the development company are forcing them out and the development company are suspicious of the creamery. Anyway, the suspicion is there and if the Minister intervenes he might be able to bring the negotiations to a conclusion. The removal of this ugly building would help the general appearance of the entire area.

Senator Sheehy Skeffington mentioned the fact that since the development of building generally there is a necessity for recreation grounds. There is an assembly hall and a recreatien centre for children in the early stages of development. The mere fact that that has been thought of indicates that they have not been forgotten. I am sure that in any further development the necessity for suitable recreation grounds will not be forgotten.

In his opening statement the Minister said that the development company was originally intended to promote passenger and freight traffic. In regard to passenger traffic, as the Seanad is aware, there looms on the horizon the threat of Shannon being by-passed and there is the threat of American airlines flying into Dublin direct. This is something which creates a scare at the airport. If there is anything calculated to create alarm in the area of Shannon where there are thousands of people working it is that something will happen to threaten the security of their employment. Although many Senators and the Minister might be satisfied that there is no likelihood of American aircraft being allowed to overfly Shannon, a mere statement does not satisfy the people who work there. I am sure that everybody welcomes the statement of the Minister for External Affairs in the Dáil that nothing will occur in this regard in the foreseeable future. The foreseeable future might be a short time. I do not know whether people think the Minister for External Affairs can see far. It is not very satisfactory to the people concerned and I hope that the Minister for Transport and Power will issue a stronger statement than that to the effect that these airlines will not be allowed to fly into Dublin Airport direct. I think the reasonable solution to that problem, if it keeps on recurring with those Atnerican interests is to say to them that if they turn their planes about at Shannon and they in turn make it a terminal airport, the Government will be prepared to make Aerlínte turn about at Shannon. That would prevent any of those airlines saying that Aerlínte has an undue advantage. I do not think the present procedure whereby Aerlínte land at Shannon and then continue to Dublin under the fiction that they are chartered to another company has been one——

Mr. Childers

Might I say that this question does not really arise on this Bill and could give rise to very considerable debate?

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I appreciate that, but the reason I have allowed the Senator to continue was that the Minister in his introductory statement referred to passenger traffic. I would ask the Senator not to delay on the point.

Mr. McHugh

As the Chair has pointed out, the Minister did state that this development company was promoted originally to promote passenger and freight traffic. I did think that anything that might endanger passenger traffic from Shannon could be mentioned. However, I am sure the Minister has a point and I shall leave it at that. I would like to congratulate him, the Department and the development company on their very successful work at Shannon.

Professor Quinlan

I think we can all welcome the Bill as an indication that the Shannon development is going ahead, though indeed we can ask ourselves whether the air freight side of it is doing as well as it was hoped it would do in the early years. We can ask whether the same amount of money spent in other areas would not have given the same boost to the economy. What we can read from the success of the effort there is simply that if money and skill are put together and pushed strongly by the Government, with the very strong incentives and efforts to recruit labour which are a prerequisite for success, as is being shown in Shannon, this type of development can be a success in any one of several other centres throughout the country.

We cannot be over-happy about some aspects of Shannon. I have got many complaints about the poor wages paid to female labour thare. I understand from certain vocational teachers that the standard wage is about £4 a week for girls of 18 to 20 years, who very often have to travel from Rathkeale, Newcastlewest and places 30 to 40 miles away and find that the bus company takes 30/- out of the £4. My information is that many of them are staying at home, feeling that it does not pay them to work for such a low figure. It is a bit depressing that the female labour content should be so high because after all we are committed to being a family people and want to see the foundation on which the head of the family secures wages to provide for himself and the family——

Mr. Childers

Might I interrupt the Senator to say that this debate need not proceed very much further? The women workers at Shannon are paid trade union rates arranged with the trade unions, rates of pay which increase on a scale.

Professor Quinlan

I can supply the Minister with some information on it which would really shock him.

Mr. Childers

Whatever information the Senator has, the development company is in charge and is in touch with it.

Professor Quinlan

If we approach it in another way, £4 a week paid to a young girl of 18 or 20 is perhaps reasonable, if she is living on the job, but when she has to pay so much by way of bus fare and so on it becomes very poor indeed. The prospect of travelling over long distances for people in that salary grade is not very attractive.

Mr. McQuillan

Some of those companies do not recognise trade unions at all. They would not let them put a foot inside the door.

Mr. Childers

They pay full trade union rates.

Mr. McQuillan

I know that.

Professor Quinlan

I can never fathom why there was such insistence on spending public money on housing development there, because if we look to America and such places, we find that someone living 15 miles from the job as in Limerick or Ennis would be regarded as living on the job. The expense has been incurred now and we have no option but to go on with the development of the community centre, but I believe it was a mistaken idea from the first and that the community development could have been directed from and associated with two or three neighbouring centres like Ennis, Limerick, Sixmilebridge or some others and would have acted as a real tonic to them.

I see that it is proposed to erect a comprehensive school there, and again I cannot see any reason for that. You have very good schools in Ennis, Limerick and such places and with the bus service available there, it would be quite possible for the students to travel that distance. We were told in connection with the comprehensive schools that if was envisaged there would be a great deal of travel involved. I cannot see any case that has been made for spending more public money on such a development there.

Dr. Press of RSPS, one of the most progressive companies in Shannon, had some very critical things to say when he addressed the Engineers Association here last October. I think the Minister has a copy of his statement. The main grievance he had was the scarcity of technicians in the development of Shannon. We know that that is so and we are rather worried by the slow steps with which the Government are approaching this problem. It is a very vital one for the success of Shannon.

No consideration of Shannon would be proper without reference to the hard-working and successful development associations they have there which have set a headline in regard to what can be done in other centres. What has been done there has not been a success just because of the airport but because of the money and the knowhow poured into the region, and if we do the same in the rest of the country it will pay similar dividends.

I do not think the ideal to which the Minister refers is over-dramatic if you look at the numbers involved. A figure of 380,000 passengers last year is a long way from comparing with the tourist trade in the case of Dublin, Cork, or some of the larger cities. In other words, proper industrial expansion here or expansion by firms here has still a much greater potential than Shannon is likely to have any time in the foreseeable future.

Another point raised by the Senator McHugh was the question of the development of the airport. He made a very worthwhile suggestion about tumabout. The Minister might very well see how that fits into his plans and his thinking for the future. On a recent trip I made, the real hardship of crossing from America was forcibly impressed upon me. You leave New York at 10 o'clock at night and arrive, getting the sun halfway across the Atlantic, without sleep at the start of a new day in Ireland. It places all incoming passengers to a very poor frame of mind to enjoy the attractions of the country. They are looking at it through bleary eyes. A turn-around at Shannon would make it quite possible to reverse that schedule. This would mean that if you leave New York at 10 o'clock, you could be in Shannon at 12 noon Irish time. If you had a different turn-about, you could be back again at 7 or 8 o'clock Irish time. If you had a quick turn-round at Shannon, you would be back again in New York at around 10.30 or 11 o'clock that night. That would make it possible to avoid losing a night's sleep.

You cannot do that now, due to travel difficulties, if you run into Dublin. If you have the turn-round at Shannon, the tourist would get into Shannon just ready for a night's sleep. This would attract very many more tourists to the country and they would have a very good first impression.

Debate adjourned.

Business suspended at 6.15 p.m. and resumed at 7.15 p.m.