They would have been shorter, had the Minister not provoked me. It did appear to me there was a misunderstanding. Córas Tráchtála is responsible for grants. I want now to make a point which is very much part of the Minister's responsibility. As a result of CIO recommendations some four or five years ago — I had some responsibility in this myself — the range was extended from market research grants for export purposes to market research grants in the domestic sphere. This was done in recognition of the fact that the export and home market are essentially the same and it was, therefore, essential that firms should establish themselves firmly in the home market and should tackle that market in the most up-to-date manner and as effectively as possible. Because of that a scheme of grants was introduced paralleling the export grants. In effect, Córas Tráchtála is concerned primarily, though not exclusively, with exports and design has been administered by the Minister's Department.
I wonder if that decision really took the point made by the CIO that, in conditions of free trade, when goods are freely importable, the home market and the export market are for all practical purposes identical. Whether you are selling goods at home and keeping out foreign goods or selling goods abroad in free competition, it amounts to the same thing, and it seems to me we now have to begin rethinking some of the functions of Córas Tráchtála in these conditions. I welcome the fact that the Government have rethought the position in relation to design and have not attempted in any narrow way to limit the work of Córas Tráchtála in design for export because that kind of approach would be unrealistic. I shall come back to that in a moment.
In the market research grants, the approach is somewhat cumbersome. I have a case in point. A firm is undertaking a survey in respect of Northern Ireland and the Republic. Both are, after all, the one market under free trade conditions. They are at the moment effectively free markets for many products. There are virtually no restrictions now. Nevertheless the firm must make two applications, and that involves a breakdown of home and export because Northern Ireland is regarded as export. The same is true in relation to any research project to the whole of this island or even further afield. This breakdown is unrealistic. When we have broken through in the case of design, we could now tidy up the whole position and give Córas Tráchtála responsibility for market research grants. They are geared to this. They have the expertise. They are very helpful to firms. Firms seeking assistance go to Córas Tráchtála and Córas Tráchtála not only provides the grant but tells the firm whether they are getting value for their money, whether the consultancy firm is doing the kind of job that should be done, and whether the fee is reasonable. It is giving the kind of service which possibly runs beyond that which the Minister's Department could provide and it would be helpful now if responsibility for home and market research grants were handed over to Córas Tráchtála. This is something the Minister may not have had an opportunity of considering so far since he has not been very long in the Department. I do not expect him to say "Yes, done," right away but I hope he will look into it and consider the entire matter on its merits.
With regard to design, I am all for Córas Tráchtála undertaking the work it is doing in the field of design. It has been particularly imaginative in its approach and very effective indeed. On a purely administrative point, I am a little puzzled as to why it is being given this function in 1967. As I understand it, the original Act gave the Board two functions — to promote, assist and develop exports and to advise the Minister on matters affecting or in any way connected with the development of exports. The Minister in his opening speech said that Córas Tráchtála was given the task in 1960 of promoting and assisting improvement in the standard and design of Irish industry. I am not quite sure by what authority it was given that job. I would not quarrel too much with that because it would be unfortunate if every new job that turned up required a special Act being put through the Oireachtas. No one would want to insist on that. The Minister's predecessor introduced an Act in 1963, the Export Promotion Act, three years after this. As far as I can see — I am open to correction — that does not contain any reference to design and it is now seven years after the original Act and four years after the last Act that Córas Tráchtála are authorised to do what it has been doing for a number of years. I should have thought the opportunity would have been taken in the Act that was brought in three years after the parent Act to legalise the position and give the Board the necessary authority. Would the Minister comment on that? Would he say why it has taken so long to legalise what Córas Tráchtála has been doing in this respect?
The work it is doing is first class, as any Senator knows who has had occasion to visit the Kilkenny Design Centre. The impact of its work there on design will be considerable. If it is not as great as it should be, the fault lies not with Córas Tráchtála but with Irish industry not having taken advantage of the facilities available there, and the great willingness of Córas Tráchtála to make these available in the most flexible way possible. I had occasion to visit them in connection with one industry and we sat down afterwards with the Córas Tráchtála people and discussed how the Kilkenny Design Workshops could be used for the benefit of industry. No matter what difficulty cropped up, Córas Tráchtála found a way around it and worked out an ad hoc solution as to how we could best make use of the facilities in question. If they are not widely enough used, and I do not believe they are, it is because Irish industry has not been quick enough to use them and to see their advantages.
There is one puzzling aspect about the accounts of the Kilkenny Design Workshops, that is, the scale of depreciation of premises. In the 1964-65 balance sheet, the premises were valued at over £54,000, but in the year following that the depreciation on the premises was £10,119. I admit that in that year the value of the premises increased considerably, to £83,607, but even at that, this is a very high write-off of premises in a country where the Revenue Commissioners do not generally offer much encouragement to the rapid writing-off of premises, desirable though that may be. I wonder why the premises have such a high write-off. It is not as if it were a piece of equipment like a motor car which would fall to pieces in five years. I know that the premises are rather old — they are the stables of the old Kilkenny Castle — but they seem to be sufficiently strong to stand for another five or ten years. I do not understand why they have to be depreciated at this extraordinary rate.
More broadly, on the question of co-operative export marketing, it is a pity that we have not made more progress in this regard. One cannot fault the Government in this regard because they have endeavoured in various ways to promote active work in this field and to get Irish industries working together in regard to their exports. However, it is very difficult to get firms to work together in the export field because one firm will be suspicious of another, as to what they will get out of it, and about what the firm in question will have to pay for its share of the work. These are problems that can be overcome. In the absence of these export co-operatives, many exporters are operating on such a small individual scale that they cannot hope to promote their goods effectively in external markets. Córas Tráchtála pointed out that in the last decade as much as 60 per cent of Irish manufactures have been sold under the distributors' seal. This means that the manufacturer has no hold on the market and the distributor in England, America, or France could change his source of supply overnight and nobody would be any wiser.
The average Irish exporter is in such a small way that for him to promote or put across an Irish brand in a foreign market would be so expensive — in regard to the cost of television advertising, for instance — that he cannot undertake it. This can only be achieved in many cases by the co-operative efforts of the firms concerned and here the reluctance of industries to co-operate leaves Irish industries at the mercy of foreign distributors and industry is not getting the firm, safe hold on foreign markets which is required. Here, perhaps, Córas Tráchtála may not have done as much as would have been desirable but I would not fault their efforts because indeed they have made a real contribution to some of the co-operative efforts that have been undertaken. I do not think that everyone in Córas Tráchtála is equally convinced of the merits of co-operative efforts; some are rather unenthusiastic in this field and a somewhat greater effort could be made, even if the first or second attempt does not always succeed.
From time to time in debates here, there has been a good deal of criticism of the Department of External Affairs on the ground that it has not pulled its weight in the export field. There must be some truth in this and there is a danger, and it is worth stressing, that the existence of Córas Tráchtála and its active work in certain markets — and it is limited to certain markets—may have encouraged the Department of External Affairs to lose sight of the importance of playing its role also, particularly where Córas Tráchtála is not active in the development of exports. I remember meeting one Ambassador who was so full of enthusiasm that he was almost willing to visit stores with a box of samples in order to get Irish exports sold. That is not true in all cases and while I would not go along with the thesis that their only purpose is to sell Irish goods and not to engage in any diplomatic work — because this is nonsense and it is the line taken by people who wish to denigrate their work — more could be done, particularly where Córas Tráchtála is not responsible.
More could also be done to train staff in the Department of External Affairs as commercial attachés. We do not have a separate consular service as other countries have and perhaps there is not sufficient emphasis placed on this side of the work. I say that somewhat tentatively because I should not like to support the type of argument which is made so often here that all that these people should be doing is going around promoting the sales of Irish goods instead of engaging in diplomatic work, which can, of course, be of great importance to this country.
In that connection, I wonder whether more might not be done in relation to Eastern Europe. I know that one can overstress the importance of trade with Eastern Europe. Efforts in this regard can be very disappointing as these State trading companies are very often unwilling to buy the kind of things we produce and past efforts have not been very successful. These efforts may have been somewhat inhibited by a lack of diplomatic contact. While there are certain countries with which this country would not wish to have diplomatic relations, such as Eastern Germany, nevertheless, we may have been too inhibited from developing diplomatic contact with these countries which are nevertheless desirable for trading reasons.
I do not think that a country like Ireland, which is endeavouring to play some part in the United Nations, should cut itself off, for instance, from that listening post in the diplomatic world, Warsaw, the listening post of the Cold War, the one place where even the Chinese talk to the Americans and where so much of value can be exchanged between East and West. Apart from that, which does not concern us in this Bill, there is the trade potential of Eastern Europe which, while it can be exaggerated, does exist and could be developed more if we were less inhibited from making more contact with countries such as Poland which shows some possibility of developing trade. It is not the best way to develop trade to treat a country as if it did not exist, and while there were reasons for not developing contacts with some countries in the past, they have not continued to exist with the same force, and our policy might be considered from the trading point of view as well as a diplomatic point of view.
The final point I should like to make relates to the diversification of our export trade, something about which we talk a lot but about which we do not do very much. It is a fact that our exporters, and I think this is true particularly of our manufacturing exporters, tend to concentrate to a very high degree on the British market and to some lesser extent on the American market. There is a reluctance to tackle the Continent of Europe as a market for manufactured goods and the range of Irish manufactures which is exported to Continental countries is extremely thin and consists in regard to a number of these countries of a handful of these products. One could name the firms on the fingers of one hand who bother to do any business with these countries.
This came out very clearly when the Federation of Irish Industries reviewed the effect of the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area arrangements on the prospects for Irish industry and trade in the years ahead. In the course of that review, it emerged that the value put by Irish firms on free access to the countries of the EEC in terms of extra exports that could be secured in 1970 if we had free access to that market was extraordinarily low. I think it did not run to more than £8 million or £10 million. This I think was an under-estimation of the potential and an indication of the extent to which Irish firms continue to look towards Britain and America to the exclusion of the much more difficult but also probably eventually more rewarding markets on the Continent of Europe.
One can understand this because our export trade is at an early stage of development. Despite the enormous growth of exports of manufactures in the past ten years, many Irish firms feel, rightly, that they are only scratching at the surface of the British market. I think that even today less than two per cent of Britain's imports of manufactures come from Ireland. That percentage is something we have increased greatly in the past ten years and many Irish firms think they can go on increasing it. They feel that to such a degree that they are inclined to neglect other markets. Here of course Córas Tráchtála has made a real contribution, with the Government's approval and as a result in part of Government initiative by the provision of extra grants for firms who are prepared to seek to develop markets other than the UK. I wonder if the Minister could say anything about the success of these efforts. Have those diversification grants had the effect necessary or have Irish firms continued to concentrate exclusively on the UK market? The actual trade returns suggest some improvement in exports to the Continent of Europe but not by any means as rapidly as one would wish. I wonder if the Minister could say something about this and about Government policy here because it does seem there is a danger that the Free Trade Area Agreement which brings us certain benefits as well as certain disadvantages could concentrate the efforts of our exporters even more wholly on the UK market to the detriment of the expansion of exports to the Continent. I should like to hear the Minister's ideas on this point.
Those are the points I wished to raise. I would repeat what I said at the outset that I regret that the Minister did not adopt a broader approach here. I recognise that in sticking to the terms of the Bill, he was following a practice as I have seen it in this House but I think it is a practice which perhaps might be reconsidered when a Bill of this kind deals with a subject which has broader implications. We are not really concerned here solely with money for Córas Tráchtála and stop there. We are concerned with what Córas Tráchtála will do with the money, with the effect of this on our export trade, our export policy, and a Bill of this kind gives the Minister an opportunity to speak on these and if in the future he felt less inhibited in his opening speech he could tackle particular policy issues and it would help the debate, stimulate the debate and give us a more fruitful debate here than one launched on this rather narrow note.
