Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 1 Mar 1978

Vol. 88 No. 7

Shannon Free Airport Development Company Limited (Amendment) Bill, 1977: Second and Subsequent Stages.

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

Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy (Mr. O'Malley)

The principal purpose of the Bill is to provide for the further financing of the Shannon Free Airport Development Company Limited by extending the limits contained in the current legislation. Specifically, the Bill provides for: (1) an increase from £25 million to £45 million in the aggregate of the amounts which the Minister for Finance may subscribe in taking up shares of the company; (2) an increase from £17 million to £22 million in the aggregate amount of grant-in-aid, voted annually, which may be made to the company; (3) an increase from £17 million to £22 million in the limit on the issue of repayable advances by the Minister for Finance for the provision of housing and community services at Shannon.

The Bill also provides that the level of remuneration and allowances of the chief officer of the company shall be subject to my approval given with the consent of the Minister for the Public Service.

Share capital subscribed to the company is used for capital expenditure on the industrial estate at Shannon and in the mid-west region. The main headings of expenditure are land acquisition, construction of factories and ancillary works. A small proportion of share capital is expended on tourism projects of a capital nature. Repayable advances are used for capital expenditure on housing and community services at Shannon. The houses are provided by the company to rent or to purchase and developed sites are also made available for private house-building. The grant-in-aid moneys are applied towards meeting the company's running expenses and providing financial assistance to industries at Shannon. A substantial part of the company's running expenses relate to tourism promotion. Expenditure in this area is met by a grant-in-aid for which the Minister for Tourism and Transport is accountable but which, nevertheless, comes within the overall limit now being amended by section 3 of this Bill.

Expenditure by the company under these three headings at 31 December 1977 was as follows: Share Capital, £25,000,000; Repayable advances, £15,281,500; Grant-in-aid, £13,841,150.

The existing limit for share capital has already been reached and there are no funds available under this heading to meet current requirements and to enable the company to continue with their factory construction programme. It is, therefore, a matter of urgency that the statutory limits be now increased. On the basis of estimates of expenditure available the proposed new limits will be reached by about the end of 1980.

The type of control proposed in section 5 in relation to the remuneration of the chief executive of the company is now being inserted in relevant statutes governing the different State companies as the opportunity arises. The power to control the chief executive's salary is already contained in the memorandum and articles of association of the company; so in fact the new provision will not affect the control operating at present but will merely give it statutory backing.

The last occasion on which legislation increasing the company's statutory expenditure limits was enacted was in July 1974. As in the case of the rest of the country, the three-and-a-half years since then have been difficult ones for both Shannon and the mid-west region. Employment in the Shannon Industrial Estate declined by over 700 during the period March 1974 to December 1975. The level of employment recovered during 1976 and 1977 and by December 1977 it had reached 4,362—an increase of over 500 on the end-1975 level. Shannon's export surplus has increased consistently during the period under review. The estimated surplus for 1977 is £50 million or over twice the 1974 figure.

The population of Shannon town has grown steadily over the period and at the end of 1977 it had reached 8,023. I note with satisfaction that there is a continuing increase in the number of Shannon residents who are opting to purchase their houses under the company's housing mortgage scheme. This trend enhances the stability of the town and provides a firm base for further progress.

Airport traffic developed satisfactorily over the period. A record level of passenger traffic through Shannon was achieved last year. Total passenger traffic in 1977 exceeded 1,170,000 of whom over 550,000 were terminal passengers. The tourism activities of the company also recorded satisfactory progress during the past three years.

Although the original establishment of the company arose from the need to secure the future of Shannon Airport, the company have had, since 1968, the function of promoting the industrial development of the mid-west region in association with the IDA. The international recession of 1974-75 cost the region about 2,200 industrial jobs. mainly in the Limerick/Shannon area. There was a considerable improvement in 1976-77 and the region would have recovered those jobs fully by the end of 1977 but for the closure of the Ferenka factory. Ferenka's closure resulted in a net loss of about 450 jobs in 1977 for the region as a whole. The company are, however, confident that 1978 will see a return to steady industrial growth because of (a) the number of job approvals—3,900—in 1977 which will start to come on stream in 1978-79 and (b) the number of jobs—3,350—which remain to be established from industrial projects approved prior to 1977.

In addition new industry inquiries are encouraging, running at about 25 per cent above last year's levels. Based on these considerations, the company expect that there will be a net increase of about 1,500 industrial jobs in the region in 1978.

The news of the Ferenka closure overshadowed the announcement of three major new industrial developments for Limerick and the region— Alcan, Beechams and Le Jouet Francais—involving a total job potential of 1,450 and planned fixed asset investment of about £270 million. The unprecedented level of job loss resulting from the Ferenka closure and the serious impact that it is having on the Limerick area are the reasons why the Government decided to designate Limerick city and some adjoining areas for higher maximum levels of industrial grants. All possibilities are being explored in regard to getting a replacement firm for Ferenka but it is too early to indicate what the outcome of these efforts will be.

Alcan's decision to proceed with the establishment of an alumina plant at Aughinish has demonstrated the industrial potential of the Shannon estuary. The promotion of estuary locations for suitable new industry will remain an important part of industrial development strategy in the mid-west region.

When speaking on this Bill in the other House I referred to the recent retirement of Mr. Brendan O'Regan from the chairmanship—but happily not from the board—of SFADCo and I think it is appropriate that I should do likewise now. Mr. O'Regan's outstanding record of public service spans a period of 30 years. More than anyone he is closely indentified with SFADCo of which he had been chairman since their establishment in 1959. My regret that Mr. O'Regan found it necessary to relinquish the chairmanship is eased by the fact that his guidance will remain available to the board who are now about to embark upon new tasks.

I should now like to deal with a matter which does not arise out of this Bill but which I regard as being of considerable significance—in the most positive sense—to the future economic and social development of the mid-west region and I believe eventually—by example and extension —to the rest of the country. This is the proposal which I mentioned at the corresponding stage in the other House, whereby SFADCo are to concentrate on the development of small industry in the mid-west region in an intensive way not previously attempted in this country. This is a pilot scheme, the results of which will be evaluated at the end of 18 months or two years when decisions will be taken about extending the scheme to the rest of the country. As I told the other House, I see this new role as giving a new dimension and a new thrust to SFADCo's work particularly in relation to industrial development. The company have, to a considerable extent, achieved their original objective, namely, to secure the future of Shannon Airport. Accordingly, the considerable flair for innovation and development work that they have shown on a number of fronts since 1959 should now be turned in a new direction.

It has long been one of my concerns that we should seek to strengthen greatly the position of indigenous Irish industry—especially small industry. We must, of course, continue and indeed intensify for many years to come our efforts to attract here new manufacturing industry that is externally financed and controlled. Industry of this kind is very welcome and indeed one of our problems is that we cannot get enough of it but the very success that we have in attracting such industry means that unless we take concurrent steps to develop domestic industry to a greater extent, our industrial structure will get out of balance and in the long term this could pose difficulties for us. It has in recent years come to be increasingly recognised not only in Ireland but in the EEC—and experience in the US also bears this out—that economic growth depends very much on a greatly increased "birth rate" of small firms. Very great emphasis was placed on the importance of small industry and the need to give greater attention to its development in the debates in the Dáil and the Seanad towards the end of 1977 on the Industrial Development Bill, 1977.

The board of SFADCo have confirmed their readiness to take on this new and nationally important role. Detailed planning is now in hand and I look forward to positive action on the ground within the region in a very short time. The main burden of the detailed planning immediately rests between SFADCo and the IDA but further consultations between my Department and the Department of Economic Planning and Development will also be necessary. In particular I am anxious that local resources and skills be deployed to maximum advantage in support of the new role and here I am thinking particularly of the special contribution which county development officers in the region can make.

As I mentioned in the other House, in order to free SFADCo to concentrate all their energies and resources on the new task I am arranging that the IDA will resume full responsibility for the promotion and development of industry other than small industry within the mid-west region. Possibly because of this aspect of the proposal, a certain amount of opposition to and criticism of the new arrangements has been engendered—or perhaps I should say whipped up—at local level. This opposition and criticism is based on the notion that, by returning to the IDA the formal responsibility which prior to 1968 they exercised in respect of medium- and large-sized industry one is downgrading SFADCo and weakening regional development. This line of argument is a totally spurious one. We want, as I say, to give SFADCo a new and special role with a special regional significance. In discharging their new responsibility they will, through new arrangements being worked out now with the IDA for the delegation of grant giving powers, be able for the first time to give grants to industry within the region. And they will be able to do this in a speedy and flexible manner.

As to involvement with medium-and large-sized industry within the region the development company to discharge properly their new responsibility will have to involve themselves with such firms. What they will not have is responsibility for promotion in the region—apart from the industrial estate—of medium- and large-sized industry. Since this activity directly involves, as I understand it, only some 2 per cent of SFADCo's total staff of about 200 and since the IDA have in any case always been involved almost exclusively in the promotion of new large enterprises in the region—for example, Alcan—the change does not represent a downgrading in any way of the role of the development company and it is wrong to think that it does.

I hope that those who may have had genuine misapprehensions in this matter now have a better appreciation of what is involved in the new role. What it entails is a change of direction, a change of emphasis in the industrial promotion work of SFADCo and with that change of emphasis I expect a greatly increased volume of industrial development work—of a new kind —by the company involving perhaps the diversion to this work of promotional skills now being deployed elsewhere in the company.

I hope that what I have just said will enable the House to have a better understanding of the new industrial and economic role now being planned for the company. On their past record I have every confidence that the company will respond to the challenge posed by their role with the same energy and determination as they have shown in the various other development activities that they have undertaken since its foundation. I recommend the Bill for the approval of the House.

Mr. Molony

I welcome the Bill. Its purpose is to increase and extend the financing of the Shannon Free Airport Development Company. There has been universal praise for SFADCo since their foundation nearly 20 years ago. In that period they have proved themselves a pioneering, enterprising and very highly successful development company and the praise showered upon them by both sides is well deserved.

The company assume responsibility for the development of Clare, Limerick and north Tipperary. For the most part that region was very poor industrially and, but for the work of SFADCo down through the two decades of their existence, it would be a very badly off region today. The company have built up a vast school of experience and a great team of personnel equipped not only with a good business knowledge and executive flair but also armed with an ability and a conviction to sell the potential of the area to industrialists and investors. In addition, the main advantage that SFADCo have had as a regional development company is the fact that they have been centred in the area and therefore, have a very good knowledge of the area's problems and of the area's potential.

I must record one criticism of SFADCo. I offer this not as a serious criticism, which I would aim at the central purpose and thinking behind SFADCo, but as a criticism from one coming from north Tipperary. That part of the country comprises one-third roughly, geographically at any rate, of the mid-west region. It has not received all the industrial benefit it could have received, nor has it been endowed with as much industrial development as have other portions of the mid-west region. I know the Minister is conscious of this and the figures for jobs actually delivered in 1977 in the mid-west region indicate a bias in favour of north Tipperary. But that is unrepresentative of what has happened down through the years and it is exceptional. Indeed, the number of job approvals for north Tipperary in the context of the whole region does not, unhappily, show the same prejudice.

Everybody is concerned in the first instance with his own area, his own people, and with his own prosperity, needless to say. I record this criticism not as a serious criticism in respect of the operations of SFADCo but rather in the hope that the criticism will remain foremost in the minds and consciousness of the board and management of the company.

The Minister said here and in the Dáil that the primary aim of SFADCo was to save Shannon Airport. The company were formed at a time when danger threatened the continued existence of the Shannon Free Airport and, indeed, the local prosperity the company had engendered. But, even at that time, that was not the sole aim of the company and development down through the years and changing circumstances have put a far greater emphasis on the broad and more fundamental aim of the company. It is worth while recording what the company's objective is. The company's objective is to ensure the growth of Shannon Free Airport in trade, passengers and services and to create a healthy prosperity in the mid-west region through sound industrial development.

In the Dáil the Minister said rightly that there was now no danger to the airport because of the work of SFADCo. I agree with him but, even if that aspect of the company's objective has been satisfied and has been achieved, their overall purpose of creating healthy prosperity through sound industrial development has not yet been achieved. There is still a great deal to be done.

As matters stand, the Shannon Free Airport Development Company, their board and management have great resources in a very broad mandate, a mandate to create and develop industries of all sorts in the region of Clare, Limerick and North Tipperary. Their function is to bring in industries, whether they are big or small, foreign owned or indigenous to the area, to encourage all type of industry, to harmonise the activities of industries, of business, of town development, so that they may prove a benefit not only to the economy of the region but to the national economy. The company's mandate did not exclude them from introducing foreign industry or major industry into the area. Their job of bringing the prosperity they were originally designed to bring into the area is not complete. Even at that, SFADCo as such have been extremely successful at all levels, whether it be in relation to small industry, big industry, native industry or foreign industry. Despite recent setbacks the performance of SFADCo in the area over the last few difficult years of economic recession has proved their worth. Their success has been due to the wide mandate they have, a mandate important to their autonomy. The company have shown the worth of decentralisation particularly from the point of view of regional development. The existence of SFADCo and their work down through the years has given the mid-west region a confidence in itself—a confidence I believe it would not have were the job of development in the area left with a development authority centred in Dublin, concerned with national as opposed to regional development. I believe that, left with their present mandate and autonomy, SFADCo will continue to enchance their successful reputation and will bring to the region the healthy prosperity they were originally charged to bring.

It is for this reason that I am greatly disturbed by the Minister's proposals with regard to the future of SFADCo. The Minister wishes SFADCo to assume a special responsibility for small indigenous related industries. If the Minister's proposals is that he would give extra financial resources and extra encouragement to create or develop new small industries in the region then this is a commendable proposal and I would support it, but the Minister's proposals go a great deal further than that. He proposes that, in order to leave SFADCo with the opportunities, the time and the resources to develop small industries, he will take from them the existing right or duty to bring in big industry and foreign industry into the area. I would say to the Minister, if he wants to ensure the growth of small industry in the area, then he should give more money to SFADCo to enable them to take on more personnel so that they will be able to create a special section within themselves designed to develop small industry. As matters stand, the Minister is giving no new function to SFADCo. SFADCo presently are concerned with small industry as well as big industry and they have been very successful at every level.

The Minister's proposals are misleading in the sense that there is more to the proposals than meets the eye or more certainly than we are being told. It may be that there is some difficulty between the Industrial Development Authority and SFADCo in so far as powers are concerned. I do not really know but I would ask the Minister, if his desire is to help develop small industry, not to take from SFADCo the powers they have. The sum total of what the Minister proposes at the moment is to denude the most successful regional development company we have ever had of their real powers. I am afraid that these proposals will reduce SFADCo to the level of a county development team with even less power than that team has.

If effect is given to the Minister's proposals immense damage will be done to the mid-western region. The area cannot get and will not get the same attention from the Industrial Development Authority or any authority centred outside the area that it received from SFADCo. My home town of Thurles has done extremely well from SFADCo. It could do with a great deal more because the town has developed over the past decade, or two, and now has a bigger population which it is anxious to keep at home. I can say in relation to Thurles, as I can say in relation to many towns in the mid-western region, that the industries we have got are foreign-owned but SFADCo will no longer have, under the Minister's proposals here, the power to bring these in and I am absolutely convinced that the IDA will not be nearly as concerned about towns the size of Thurles, Templemore, Roscrea, Nenagh or towns in other countries in the mid-west region as SFADCo have been. SFADCo know the area and have the interests of the area completely at heart. They have the conviction necessary to sell the area and its advantages, which will bring in industries suitable to the area. The IDA, on the other hand, are concerned with bigger industries. They do not consider a small town because, when they consider the introduction of an industry, they are talking about a massive labour pool.

I believe that to take from SFADCo the powers they have would do immense damage to Tipperary, particularly north Tipperary, and also to Clare. Limerick being a bigger city would probably receive more attention from the IDA. Overall this is a regressive and bad proposal. Industrially, the mid-west region has taken a bad hammering over the past several months because of the closure of Ferenka. The Minister has said he did appoint a certain portion of the mid-west region a designated area so far as industrial development is concerned but, when doing that, he did not include all of the employment catchment area of Ferenka. There is a large portion of west Tipperary, a very poor agricultural area, the Slieve Phelim region, where families rely on industry to supplement their incomes.

If I might digress for a moment, the electoral promise made by Fianna Fáil and the guarantee given to include this area of west Tipperary, the poorer areas in the Slieve Phelim region, in the disadvantaged areas scheme, has yet to be honoured. If the public utterances of the Minister for Agriculture since the election mean anything they indicate very strongly that there is an attempt to sidestep on this guarantee. We have lost Ferenka and people in poorer areas have lost an income or this means of supplementing their income. Outside Nenagh, Silvermines employ several hundred workers. The life of the mine is limited. The estimate at the moment is four to five years. If the price of the mineral product it produces drops further, or does not stabilise, does not increase or sustain itself in world markets, the likelihood is that that mining enterprise will have even a shorter life span. That is a very short period— three or four or five years—in terms of bringing in and establishing an industry that will absorb something in the order of 600 or 700 men.

So, between Ferenka and the likely major cutdown in employment because of the mines reaching their natural end, there is the danger that we will require something in the order of 2,200 to 2,500 extra jobs in that area over the next few years. That, of course, is in addition to the ever-increasing demand we have for employment in any area in the country anyway. To take away at this juncture the autonomy, the enterprising and able executive powers SFADCo have will do immense damage. I would urge the Minister to reconsider the position. I know that he is approaching this in what he regards as a very sensible and proper fashion. I do not suggest that he is being in any way dishonest but I doubt somehow that the reason SFADCo are being denuded of all powers is for the reason he has given. I feel there is something more to this—I do not know what it is—but there are reverberations and I am not inclined to accept that the board of SFADCo are very happy with what has happened. It is a State agency.

A short while ago in this House we discussed the establishment of the office of the Director of Consumer Affairs and the necessity that that person should be independent and outside the Department of Industry, Commerce and Energy so that he could act independently. In this instance the Minister tells us that the board of SFADCo are satisfied to take on their new job. Of course, they are satisfied to take on their new job. They are a semi-State body. They are part and parcel of it. The board are subject to appointment by the Government and because they are there is a lack of independence. There may be some slight conflict between—and, maybe, rightly so—the IDA and SFADCo. Perhaps SFADCo have done too well while other agencies have not. In saying this I may be leaving myself open to the charge that I am all for the mid-west region and forgetting about the rest of the country. I see particular problems there at the moment and I think that of all times we need the SFADCo now. We need them to continue their work. We need them to compensate for job losses above average job losses which, I am afraid, will continue to occur over the next few years.

Mrs. Honan

It does me enormous good to hear Senator Molony praise so much a project which was the brainchild of Fianna Fáil. We know the worries he has. He has been in the region as I have been for 27 years. I would just say to people to give the Minister a chance. This is not at all as challenging or as frightening as when we started Shannon Airport a long, long time ago. I am a good bit older than Senator Molony and I do not remember the start but I have lived beside it for 27 years. I have also heard local criticism of this Bill in the past fortnight or three weeks because I am competing in the local paper with a Member from the other side of the House. Rather than answer him I ignored him. I have such faith in the Minister, the Government and Shannon Airport—because I have covered it and know the personnel so well—I consider it would be very foolish to think this constituted a downgrading of Shannon.

I have always had very strong views on small industries and a dead set on large internationals. How many times have they gone wrong? I am not going to mention Ferenka or the others. I have personal contacts with small industries and with family industries. Had we even four such small ones to every one of the big ones—about which some Members on the other side of the House are worried—we would get our people back to work.

Shannon and SFADCo's greatest asset was enshrined in all our personal commitments, every one of us in the region. There were ups and downs. It is not amusing—this is not a House that is supposed to amuse people—but I wonder why did not the Senator's party put their money where his mouth was a few minutes ago when they were in Coalition for the past four years, when the chairman, now gone from SFADCo, Brendan O'Regan, had to stand up at a board meeting and say: We have no money to do anything or to go on.

Mr. Molony

They now have no powers.

Mrs. Honan

The Senator does not know yet because he does not understand the Bill; he will in time. I should like to put on record here today how grateful we in Clare and in the region are to SFADCo. Why should there be any doubt, why should one hand over the pioneering—which is pioneering of these small industries—only to somebody who has already been a success, who may be the man on the factory floor—a man like Paul Quigley? Brendan O'Regan is gone and I welcome Mr. McCabe who has not yet taken up his position, but I have no worries in that respect.

The Senator mentioned an increase. He mentioned only all the things that were taken. The Government have increased the money to SFADCo for Shannon from £17 million to £22 million this year. The other side of the House are thinking of change in the past few weeks because from what I have been reading in the paper from a Senator we did not have that attitude at all when the Bill was introduced in the Dáil. Therefore somebody has had a slight change in thinking or perhaps it is just a matter of publicity. I do not really know and I am not concerned.

I welcome this Bill. If it goes wrong Senator Molony will be a bit farther away from it than I will be. I have no doubt at all about the Minister's abilities, he being the neighbour's child and a TD for the region. I only hope that when he does get it off the ground he will see fit to do the same thing in other parts of the country. Indeed, as Senator Molony said, we were often the envy of other regions. I am sure that will be the case again in the future. But now of course we have an excellent Minister and the minute he has SFADCo on the way with this new project he will not stall and sit, he will see that there are SFADCos spread all over. I do not think in terms of being in Government for five years' rather I think in terms of another 16 years, and we will have plenty of time to do it.

Senator Molony mentioned that the board of SFADCo were not happy. I would like to know where he got his information. One does not brainwash them. If he thinks one could brainwash some of the men I know or that one could get near them at all, even as a public representative, he does not know them too well.

I take this opportunity of wishing the Minister well. Being in the region he will see that his Bill is implemented when the doubting Thomases will come back and ask us if we would site a SFADCo in Mayo, Donegal or somewhere else.

Mr. Keating

I shall turn aside for a moment from what I was going to say to make a very brief reference to what Senator Honan has just contributed. She is new here so perhaps we will make allowances for her. But I would like to tell her that in my time in both Houses I have not previously heard claims about semi-State companies, which are the property of the whole nation, in terms of the sort of proprietorial rights as the brainchild of Fianna Fáil that she uttered. I know there are people in Fianna Fáil who think that Fianna Fáil invented the IDA. I have never heard members of the Coalition make the sort of claim about the IDA that she has just made about SFADCo. I would like, through her, to tell people at large that when good things or, indeed, bad things are done they are very frequently done as a result of the gathering of a consensus. If one were to trace back who thought of it first one might find it was someone on the other side of the political fence or, indeed, someone with nothing to do with politics at all; great credit to the people. For example, I know where the IDA idea came from. It was not from anybody at the forefront of any political party. But when we get to the stage of playing football in regard to what one might call political paternity for the things that are successful in this island we have got to a stage where political debate gets fairly childish and disgusting.

In regard to one point Senator Honan made about money, she suggested that Brendan O'Regan, then the chairman—I will mention him later on—had complained that they had run out of money. The inference was that in Coalition times SFADCo were starved for money. If Senator Honan will do what I did not have the time to do—because I stayed in the House while she was speaking hoping to get in after her—if she looks at the evolution of the annual grant to SFADCo, year in year out during the previous term in office of Fianna Fáil and during the period in office of the Coalition, she will see that the innuendo she made—she did not say it; she merely implied it—that in Coalition times, and specifically in my time as Minister for Industry and Commerce, SFADCo were badly treated and starved for money, will not bear scrutiny. I hope when she acquaints herself with the facts that somewhere or other in public she will have the grace to withdraw the innuendo she made on the public record here today. That is enough about that.

I want now to deal with more serious things and talk about the Bill. Then I want to talk about matters not directly in the Bill but introduced by the Minister in his speech. The Bill is simple and short. It gives us a chance to debate SFADCo. It is principally about money for SFADCo than it is about remuneration. I do not think anybody takes issue with any of its provisions but it is useful that we should have a discussion about SFADCo. I do not propose to say anything more about the Bill as such except that it is not one I want to oppose in any way.

The Minister introduced very interesting thoughts in his speech. I should like to offer my reaction to them and to say that, of the various jobs I had as his predecessor, except for the Energy bit, none was a greater pleasure than going to SFADCo, than going to the airport, to the new town, going around with the people there. I found an extraordinarily interesting, moving and valuable thing had developed there. Sometimes they were more successful than others—I am not now talking about success but about mood and attitude. What I found so interesting was that they were able to blend a number of considerations and do it on a scale related to a particular environment with which people could connect themselves. Let me put that into more specific terms. Their area of responsibility was small enough for them to have a very intense appreciation both of the strength and the weaknesses, a more intense appreciation I believe than is possible for any central organisation in Dublin to have. Orginally their great pre-occupation was the securing of the airport. But very rapidly it became evident that while the airport would continue to need to be nurtured and developed, such was the growth of traffic worldwide that the acute threat which had produced the thinking that generated SFADCo had passed and that the future of the airport would be better or worse, depending on how people exerted themselves, but that there was not that acute danger. Then they went on and did many other things, some in relation to tourism, some in relation to industry.

What I found so exciting was that they were able to have the sense of community exceedingly strongly in their work, to have the sense of environment exceedingly strongly in their work. It seemed to me they were able to match up the sometimes conflicting requirements of industrial development on the one hand and the preservation, both of community and environment, on the other. They did it extraordinarily well and they did it on a human scale. They were small enough for people to be able to connect with them and not have this terrible sense of alienation that the decisions were being taken a long way away in Dublin and that it was all somewhat impersonal. I found great stimulation, encouragement and pleasure in being with them. I could not say that without paying a tribute to Brendan O'Regan as the chairman, who has now retired, because he seemed to me to be the practical sort of patriot. He did two things. One was that he made things happen and the other was that he inspired other people to make things happen. He was the best sort of activist. I am very pleased that even though he does not remain as chairman his enormous vision, wisdom, practical experience and drive will remain at the services of the board and of SFADCo. He has done great good to his country in his fruitful life. I hope he will long continue to do so.

I have said very approving things and admiring things about SFADCo. I will say something else which relates to them and, indeed, I remember discussions of this kind with their board. The economic difficulties bear on many parts of the country and perhaps bear most heavily in some aspects on Dublin. In the long term, from every possible point of view, we need triangular development. Perhaps later if we added four or five points to our economic development it would be even better for us. The three points should be Cork and Limerick as well as Dublin. Therefore we have to see that both of them grow more rapidly than Dublin, that they grow past the sort of threshold point where they can sustain all of the things that modern cities and people near to modern cities are entitled to and also from the point of view of transportation costs, efficient communication services and so on. For every other possible reason that triangular development is the best one.

I always thought SFADCo played an extremely important part in the making of Limerick, the Estuary, that very remarkable piece of natural good fortune that we possess in the existence of the Shannon Estuary and the area around it, into something that, if we look down the decades, would be a development on a scale that could counterbalance Dublin. It was fortuitous in a sense that a structure like SFADCo first came into existence in Limerick, in Shannon. It was because of the location of the airport originally and yet it took on a completely new role.

I was very interested to hear the Minister say in the course of his introductory remarks:

I should like now to deal with a matter which does not arise out of this Bill but which I regard as being of considerable significance—in the most positive sense—to the future economic and social development of the mid-west region and I believe eventually—by example and extension—to the rest of the country.

The argument has been raised here as to whether the decisions indicated in regard to middle-sized and large industry represent a downgrading of SFADCo. In a sense, it is incontestable that they do in regard to one aspect of SFADCo. Yet, the Minister has given a powerful impetus to another aspect. The idea of giving the IDA national responsibility for everything medium and big in regard to industry but simultaneously of giving an enhanced impetus to regional organisations in regard to small industry is certainly an interesting idea and not one I could find myself able to condemn a priori. Indeed, I recall, in a wide-ranging conversation with Mr. Brendan O'Regan that this sort of idea was perhaps passed backwards and forwards. With the passage of time and without having taken notes of the meeting I could not purport to indicate his opinion more than to say that, from my recollection, I believe the idea now being expounded by the Minister was not one that Mr. Brendan O'Regan found unacceptable as a sort of evolution for SFADCo because there are genuinely a pair of difficulties in regard to industrial promotion. One is that there is a central organisation; it is a bit far away, a bit inhuman, a bit distant and local people do not have as much trust in it as if it were close to them. In that sense the identification of the people in the SFADCo region with SFADCo is greater than the identification of the people of that region with the IDA. It is natural and right that it should be so. Therefore one has the argument in favour of regional organisation having the power to promote industry of every kind.

But let us say that SFADCo are a success, which I believe them to be; let us say that we need regionalisation in this country and we need structures with which the population can identify and I believe we need such structures. Let them say—and this is what interests me in the Minister's speech—that we need something like SFADCo widely; we need it in other parts of the country as well. In his speech the Minister said:"...—by example and extension—to the rest of the country". That is an interesting and useful thought. Yet it is unthinkable to replicate the IDA that many times. It worked in a kind of way; there was an understanding between SFADCo and the IDA. In fact on the big ones the IDA did it and they got on. There was a bit of a grey area between them. Yet it worked out reasonably. But if one replicated SFADCo all over the country and had the IDA as well, with both lots of structures responsible for big and middle-sized industry then one would have an organisational mess with endless disputes. I am bound to say that the idea of leaving nationwide the big and middle-sized companies to the IDA seems to me logical and right in terms of efficiency of organisation.

I share the Minister's concern, as does anyone who is interested in industrial development in Ireland, with spawning the largest possible number of indigenously-generated small companies, and it does not matter. The contrary argument is that in terms of effort it is enormous; you may get 500 jobs for the same effort as you get five. Nonetheless the little ones are the sort of training ground and hold the key to the future. Therefore, it seems to me that having the more regional organisation devote its specific focus on the question of small industry, the generation of new small industry and ensuring the health of what exists in small industry amounts to a division of responsibility with logic to it. I can only say I would hold a contrary opinion only if I saw evidence after a number of years that the thing was not working well. I would have to say: let us see if it works well. I hope the Minister will perhaps come back to this in his reply. Perhaps he would amplify a little what is such a teasing reference where he says to extend "...—by example and extension— to the rest of the country". These sorts of regional structures, blending industrial promotion with tourism, with the care for environment and with the nurturing and strengthening of community seem to me very precious. It seems to me that SFADCo have done very interesting and original things with great feeling and verve. They may be a very good model to replicate. One cannot have the structure too small because then the country requires too many of them and they get so small as to be inefficient. If one does it for a whole nation, even for one of our size, it becomes distant and somewhat inhuman. I would suggest something perhaps dealing with the sort of two or three-county unit. Let the units be natural ones; let them form themselves on the basis of where are the natural hinterlands and areas. That is worth a try. While I am aware of the criticisms I find myself more in agreement with the thoughts expressed in the Minister's speech than I do with those of Senator Molony though he is closer to the problem than I am.

There is very little more I want to say except that we have been given an opportunity here to talk about Ferenka. It is one I will quite deliberately and consciously decline. The Minister said also in the course of his remarks:

All possibilities are being explored in regard to getting a replacement firm for Ferenka but it is too early to indicate what the outcome of these efforts will be.

I have taken the decision previously that I will not enter this debate at this stage while that work is going on though it is an issue on which I have many thoughts and on which I hope on a future occasion to speak.

I shall end by saying that I think the Minister may be moving and showing us the tip of the iceberg. He may be moving towards new structures nationwide. It will be impossible, if he is so moving, to say that idea started on day X with person Y. It started in lots of places; those sort of ideas have been moving about; they are being discussed. If he is the person to bring them to fruition and to produce SFADCo-like structures widely in the country wherever the ideas came from originally he will be the person in whose time and under whose impetus they came to fruition. I may have critical things to say about the details of implementation. I hope the Minister will amplify the small reference in the course of his speech I have quoted. That sort of development is necessary and, if he is embarking on it, is one that is welcome and in prospect of which, certainly on the basis of political disagreement I will not find possible to oppose.

Mícheál Cranitch

Fáiltimse roimh an mBille seo leis. Even though I am many miles away from the centre of SFADCo operations I am very proud of their existence. I am very proud also of and heartily salute the wonderful work they have done since their initiation. Their story has been one of continuous success. I wish them every success in the future now that they are in the happy position of having further capital with which to work. For me the most important statement in the Minister's address is:

...SFADCo are to concentrate on the development of small industry in the mid-west region in an intensive way not previously attempted in this country. This is a pilot scheme, the results of which will be evaluated at the end of 18 months or two years when decisions will be taken about extending the scheme to the rest of the country.

I have always been a believer in small industry. While it is true we all like to hear of a factory being built somewhere giving employment to perhaps anything from 200 to 500 people, unfortunately, the bigger it is the bigger the disaster if, for some reason or other, it fails. Everybody, no matter where he lives, felt very upset, disappointed and disillusioned when Ferenka failed. I have always thought it would be much better and safer to have, shall we say, ten factories, each employing 50, rather than one employing 500. It suits us to have factories that are reasonably small; it suits us being the kind of people we are. There is also less danger of disaster. This idea of getting SFADCo with their wisdom and knowledge to operate small industries is excellent and the Minister is to be highly complimented on it.

Since SFADCo will be operating small industries, it means that there will be a number of small industries scattered around the area. I am sure they will bear it in mind that, if they want to establish 15 or 20 small industries producing assorted types of manufactured goods in the foreseeable future, there must be without doubt an ideal place for each one of these factories. They should try to avoid having a factory, no matter how small, in a place that is environmentally unsuited to it, and they should take into consideration problems of pollution which seem to cause so much trouble at the moment. I am sure they will keep these points in view. I wish SFADCo every success in their new type of enterprise and in their new direction.

Dr. Martin

I would like to give a limited welcome to the Bill on the grounds that some of it can only be judged in terms of performance. The notion of SFADCo taking up the running for small industries in the north Tipperary-Limerick-Clare region has proved most controversial here today. That notion has already been covered from this side of the House by Senator Molony in a very eloquent and well argued speech and by Senator Keating. The Minister claimed that performance on this will be evaluated within 18 months. That suggests a certain urgency and determination on the part of the Minister and his Department. It will be very interesting to see what kind of results can be achieved in that time. The development of SFADCo has been enormously successful.

One aspect of that success that has not been glanced at yet is that the development of SFADCo has resulted in a proliferation of cultural activities in the Limerick region. It seems unquestionable that when there is a certain kind of buoyance with regard to the economic and industrial situation, the people devote time and energy to cultural affairs. From the very foundation of the Shannon free industrial area there was a great burgeoning of very enlightened cultural activities that were not only good in themselves but which had a very considerable spin-off for the tourist industry. For instance, the development of Bunratty Castle and its mediaeval entertainments and the highly enlightened follow-through with the establishment of a folk museum in that area and the consequent improvement in amenity among the hotels, restaurants and all kinds of tourist enterprises in that entire region.

There is a very high standard of hygiene and of catering capability in the region which is not unconnected with the scheme and its development and with the cultural amenities that have developed as well. Various cultural schools and foundations like the Merriman School have been established. When one moves through that region one is aware that it is a region that is not only alive industrially and socially but culturally as well. That is a dimension to the Minister's proposal worth glancing at. Small industries are not alien from that consideration. When one moves through Donegal which is another culturally rich region which is very sophisticated in terms of tourist amenity, one is aware of the very strong penetration of the culture of the people into the cottage industry, the home industry and the small factory there. That area seems promising but again it will only be possible to judge on performance. Eighteen months is a grossly inadequate time in which to have a proper look at what may develop from the Minister's proposals but the sense of urgency and determination indicated is extremely welcome.

In looking at the positive side of the Bill I share Senator Keating's view that there is nothing to which one can take exception. The small industry in itself is probably best looked after by a local agency. It is inevitable that when a big industry like Ferenka is set up in a region it attracts and spawns small service industries which become sometimes pitiably dependent on that primary monstrous growth.

One of the most plaintive results of the fall of Ferenka was that many very small family industries which had grown up dependent on its patronage and goodwill, went to the wall. Some of them may have recovered since but there was a good deal of human tragedy at that level. A small industry taken under the wing of SFADCo would have a far better chance of continued life, because that agency is an enduring successful enterprise, which has its roots very deeply in the local culture. Any enterprise that SFADCo undertook to support or sponsor, would have a far better hope of help and enlightened guidance in time of need. It would get far greater help from such an agency than it would from something large and multinational in the Ferenka line.

On that level it is wise to direct the small industries towards SFADCo and to direct the larger ones towards the IDA, with their global national concern. I am taking the Bill entirely in terms of goodwill. The determination to take SFADCo away from these large industries and to direct them towards the small ones is not a downgrading, it is not just a ruse or a kind of trojan horse, in order to denude them of some of their powers. Taken in good faith the Bill looks goods, but finally one will have to depend very much on its performance on the ground. We will all be pretty vigilant in looking for results in that direction.

The matter of remuneration is raised in section 5 and I hope that the ministerial control over remuneration will be there in order to ensure generosity rather than niggardliness in the paying of the chief executive. There tends to be a begrudging attitude towards people who hold important posts in private or in semi-State bodies. It is a very great mistake to count pennies in this matter because good executives are hard to find. If semi-State bodies are not willing to pay them well they can get paid elsewhere. A point constantly raised, is that it is invidious that the managing director of a semi-State body should be paid more than say, a Minister or the Taoiseach. That is really a very irrelevant point. A Minister or a Taoiseach has a lot more motivation than a captain of industry. He would have consolation in the areas of prestige and power and he would have spiritual consolations, in the sense that he is by definition somebody dedicated to the good of his country, who is not primarily looking for his rewards in financial form.

The comparison between the two kinds of remuneration and the two kinds of office is false and it should not be brandished as a means of paying an inadequate salary to somebody taking on responsible work of this kind. I hope section 5 is there in order to enhance salary rather than to constrict it. This Bill is in many ways a more revolutionary Bill than it looks, especially when taking into account the foreshadowings on pages 5 and 6 of the Minister's speech. With these reservations I welcome it and look forward with very great interest to its operation on the ground.

Mr. Mulcahy

It is with some misgivings that I welcome this Bill. I almost do not know where to start. To a great extent any of the success I have had in life is due to SFADCo and Shannon. I was the first person employed by SPS International, which is one of the companies that SFADCo brought in to the Shannon Industrial Estate. It was there that I got a grounding in industrial management. Sometimes that aspect of the contribution that has been made is forgotten. There are other people like me working in firms and in State bodies throughout the country who acquired their skills in the industrial estate in Shannon. There are many people now working in AnCO training other people, who discovered and developed their talents on the factory floors of the industrial estate in Shannon. This is one of the great contributions that came from that area. The industries operated in new and modern technology generally and therefore there was an upgrading of the kind of work that people had to do. I do not know how to say just how much praise we should pour on Brendan O'Regan, the chairman of SFADCo and his colleagues, Paul Quigley, chief executive, Tom Callanan and others.

My first memories of SFADCo are associated with mud. We crawled through mud all over the industrial estate because they were pushing ahead at such a rate that the infrastructure could not keep up. There was no housing, but lots of mud. There was not enough heating because boilers were not working. I remember having to make tea for girls in the factory estate at 8.30 a.m. because the boilers were not working and it was the only way we could keep them warm.

SFADCo succeeded in consolidating the airport's position. It also gave rise to the birth of a town in the middle of County Clare with a population of 8,000. That is a tremendous achievement. It gave confidence to Limerick where there was an awful lot of doubt about Shannon. People kept saying "When is it going to fail? When will they all get into their aeroplanes and fly out of the country and leave us all with our spent assets?" The development of Shannon and the growth of that town provided confidence in that region and some of that confidence rubbed off on the country as a whole. It was a pump-priming contribution to industrial development. Over and above that, as Senator Martin brought out so well, it made a contribution in the culture area.

When I think of Brendan O'Regan and his team in Shannon I think of people who had a vision that something could work and who were not put off by any doubting Thomases. They said that it was possible to bring a dead castle back to life, to bring the emigrants back to work in places like Shannon, and to get young children of farmers with no background in industry and with the right type of training and helpful coaching to turn them into skilled industrial operators and managers. That is the vision which existed at that time.

When I look back on it I see the importance of planning at that time. They were professionals and they knew the need for planning. It did produce the results. It is very useful at times to go back and think about the decisions which had to be taken some ten years ago—I am talking about 1959 which is nearly 20 years ago—and to think about the doubting Thomases who perhaps held back the amount of investment needed, the doubting Thomases who said the Ennis road between Limerick and Shannon would not be filled with cars, that it would not be necessary to expand it and that money going into that was going down the drain because the Americans would fly away, and to think about the vision and the confidence of the team that kept on and said that the cars would be going front to back separated by only 20 yards on the road between Limerick and Shannon. That day came to pass and anybody who now tries to travel that road at peak time will know what it is like. I remember people laughing at that projection in 1959. It gives me confidence to think about a new direction as the Minister said, when we look back at that time, because maybe we are at another turning point now. We should encourage and welcome it and let that brilliant team get on with their work.

The other spin-off which came from it was the confidence it engendered. It allowed the Department for Education to go ahead with a National Institute of Higher Education in Limerick. I was working with the late Donogh O'Malley at the time on that venture and my belief is that that institution would never have been started if it was not for the growth of Shannon which showed that an institution of that kind was needed, that a new approach to the development of technology was needed. Shannon, beside it, provided the encouragement, the inspiration, and the vision.

Because so many foreign visitors and technicians were arriving, Americans, Germans, English, Dutch, and Japanese, there was a fear that some sort of a foreign cultural amalgam or hybrid would emerge around Shannon. What happened was that as a result of the introduction of the tours, the castle mediaeval banquets, the villages, the folk museum and the Irish cottages a sense of Irish identity developed out of the inspiration and the intrusion, to some extent, of the foreigners. There again, it was the vision of the people who work there who saw that, and had the drive and conviction to bring it about. I remember people in Limerick laughing at the idea of a mediaeval banquet in Bunratty. Having participated in the development of the idea, and having being thrown into the dungeon a few times as I sung my songs, it is great to see that it happened, and that it is still going on. Other countries are now building on the same idea. It is great to see Irishmen leading in that way. There is a national identity associated with the cultural development in that area which people in other parts of the country could follow.

I had the pleasure of having Brendan O'Regan on Comhairle na Gaeilge when I was chairman of it a few years ago. There I saw his contribution to the development of the Irish language in that he saw that it was an essential component in the evolution of national identity and that it could go hand-in-hand with industrial development. That is what led to the report called Gniomh don Gaeltacht. As we have heard in this House before, we are due to have an Údarás na Gaeltachta arising from that report. Brendan O'Regan was the inspiration behind that, and gave that report soul, rather than just producing an economist's stark, figure-full prose document. It was a report with soul because it saw the possibility of the combination of development of industry and development of culture going hand-in-hand, grounded in the Irish language. It is important to look back and learn from the way in which people thought in those days because we need the same sort of vision today.

The Minister outlined that he sees SFADCo having the opportunity to come forward with a new deal. He is asking for a new lead in the development of small industry. I went on at length in this House—not for three hours as the Press said recently—on the importance of small industrial development. Forty per cent of our employment is provided by industries employing less than 100 people. Therefore, a tremendous effort must go into that. That was a central component and theme of the Fianna Fáil manifesto. The uprise in interest in small industrial development which has taken place since Fianna Fáil came back to power is in no small way due to the fact that we highlighted it and everybody knew the message was on the wall; Fianna Fáil are after small industry.

The Minister is taking advantage of this visionary group in Shannon to ask them to give a new lead in the development of small industry. I welcome that. I also welcome the fact that a review of it will take place within a year-and-a-half or so to see how progress is going. Knowing the people there, I am sure that they will have some new ideas to display before the nation. That brings us to the question of whether we are downgrading SFADCo. I have to go home and meet my sister and father in Limerick who will say: "What did you say up there in Dublin about SFADCo?" I have to take my courage in my hands and say that in this case we have to let the Minister have a go. The Minister is asking SFADCo to provide us with a new lead. They will do that. They have more than the task of getting jobs. They are there to help in tourism, in environmental renewal, and in putting up those thatched cottages which are now going up all over the country. I would like to see a few of them in Dublin.

Their interest in industrial development as such will continue and a fact that may be overlooked in this debate is that they will retain their function in relation to the Shannon Industrial Estate itself. They are not pulling out of the industrial estate as far as a medium to large sized industry is concerned. It is outside the region that there is a change in emphasis. One thing we have found in industrial development is that concentration is important. There is no point as I see it, in having executives from the IDA calling on presidents of companies in California and the following day having somebody from SFADCo calling on the same man. People can get in each other's way in a situation like that and possibly this new development will provide room for greater concentration which produces results.

The team in SFADCo, led by the new chairman, Frank McCabe, who comes from an eminent family of successful individuals who lead industry, will take up this challenge and will give us an approach to small industry development which will be an example for the rest of the country which then might, as Senator Keating said, use it as a model. Possibly the Minister might say something about this when he replies, as prompted by Senator Keating.

In relation to a few opening phrases by Senator Keating when he more or less paternally put down my colleague, Senator Honan, it ought to be remembered that the original IDA which the Opposition claims as their idea was a promotion body which worked with Foras Tionscal, the grant-giving body which was a section of the Department of Industry and Commerce. The structure and the strategy behind the IDA that exists today emerged later on. So, everybody has a claim on IDA. To that extent I agree with Senator Keating, but it should be put on record that the IDA that came into existence in the fifties was a small promotions group and not the large vibrant, multi-structure IDA that we have today. What is definite is that the combination of Seán Lemass's vision with Brendan O'Regan gave rise to SFADCo, to the development of Shannon and to that vision which inspired the rest of the country in its industrial development and provided the spin-off of trained people who were able to work in other industries throughout the country. My hope is that somebody may stand in the Seanad in 20 years time and say that maybe the new Seán Lemass— Deputy Desmond O'Malley—has come up with a new vision which will give us a new lead and will ensure that the development of small industry takes place in line with the proportion it contributes to total employment, which is 40 per cent.

I welcome the Bill. I welcome the action but I have some misgivings as an individual who grew up in that area and developed any expertise I may have, that people in Limerick may say it is a downgrading. I do not think it is. I think it is a new direction, a new deal and a request for a new vision from Limerick and Clare.

One negative thing—and here again I support Senator Martin and to this extent the Minister may not agree with me—I hate to see these little paragraphs in every Bill talking about controlling the chief executive's remuneration. It is anathema. It is interfering with the reward system which should be determined not by reference to what the secretary of a Department or a Minister gets but by reference to the chief executive of organisations in Japan or Europe or anywhere else against which the chief executives of our organisations in Ireland have to compete. If we have to pay £25,000 to a man to compete with the chief executive of a body in France or Denmark we should pay him that. That is my view. I welcome the Bill and crave the indulgence of the Chair for some of the more emotional outbursts.

Mr. Staunton

I welcome the opportunity to speak briefly on this Bill. On this side of the House there is no disagreement and there is support for the Minister and the Government in terms of the detail of the Bill in the sense that it updates funding requirements in line with increased costs and the present-day position within the organisation in SFADCo in Shannon. In that sense the Bill is conventional and has our support. Having said that, it is rather in the small print and in the initial speech of the Minister wherein lies the controversy with which we take issue and I would like to deal later on with some of these matters.

I agree with the views expressed by those who paid a compliment to the SFADCo organisation who have done a most remarkable job since their establishment in 1959. SFADCo started on a crisis basis because of the serious threat to Shannon Airport. Initially they did an excellent job in containing the rot where the airport was concerned and subsequently did extremely useful work in the sense that no organisation within this country prior to that had become involved in the regions in industrial and tourist development. They have been an example to successive Governments to show what can be done on a regional basis, to show what can be done when you give a certain amount of autonomy to a region rather than to a Government Department situated in Dublin. Their work has been commended outside this country. They have been acting as advisers in many parts of the world in the tourist and in the industrial development areas in countries such as Egypt and more recently their Third World activity under the United Nations. All of that is welcome and it has reflected greatly to the credit of this country and to the organisation in particular.

In some of the speeches that have been made in this House and in the Dáil there have been pious hopes expressed that the example of SFADCo might be used as the foundation on which to base similar structures elsewhere in this country. I smile a little when I hear these sentiments expressed because Governments in this country have had the wealth of experience gained from the operation of SFADCo since 1959, which is practically 20 years ago, and it seems to me that lessons could have been learned from that regarding the advantages or disadvantages of such structures, and the problems inherent in them. Action could have been taken long before now in terms of analysing what has happened there and deciding in what other parts of this country similar structures might be developed. It is in that regard that we have to take exception to the fact that there has not been any development along these lines.

In the debate there was unfortunate reference to the supposed starving of finance of SFADCo by the Coalition Government. It was not my original intention to refer to what happened when we were in Government but it is necessary in the circumstances of the speech made. I have before me the annual report of the organisation for the year ending 31 December 1976 and we can put on the record what in fact happened in very simple terms where money and Oireachtas grants were concerned. In 1975 Oireachtas grants to SFADCo totalled £1,636,000. In 1976 Oireachtas grants totalled £1,960,152, an increase of about £300,000 on a base of £1,600,000 which is a percentage increase of 20 per cent in the last year when we were in government. These are facts in so far as the Oireachtas grants were concerned in the last year when the previous Government had overall responsibility for the funding of the SFADCo operation.

Again we have to question the views of the Minister both in his speech to the Dáil and in his speech to the Seanad this afternoon. In particular there are two issues; in other words, there are two proposed changes in the activities of the organisations. The first proposed change is the fact that for the future SFADCo will not have a promotional role for industry in the mid-west region and this role, which they have had for a number of years, is now to be dealt with by the Industrial Development Authority.

I find this a most unwelcome development because in this area of industrial development we are particularly bounden to development by companies outside this country. The sources of development are companies in the United States, Germany, Britain, France, western Europe and Japan and if you cut off from its source an organisation such as SFADCo who have been involved in industrial promotion, in this area of industry it is dead. Industry from other countries is the major source of industrial development and employment and all the consequent benefits that flow from it, but SFADCo will not now have autonomy in this area.

Under this new arrangement SFADCo will succeed or fail not through anything to do with the initiative of the executives in Shannon but rather with the extent to which the Industrial Development Authority will or will not send the flow of inquiries from other countries and the extent to which the IDA will encourage visits by visiting industrialists to the mid-west region. This is most unfortunate. I do not see any problem whatever vis-à-vis Shannon engaging in such promotional activity even though the Industrial Development Authority are doing it. I see their role in promotion in that area as being a supportive role.

The Industrial Development Authority as a national institution are engaged outside this country and are doing a remarkably good job in encouraging people to establish industries here, but because it is not in their brief, when they speak to people in New York they cannot suggest to them that they should go to a particular part of this country—that is not their function and it creates problems. The back-up which can be provided through the promotional activity of SFADCo, of local authority, RDO's and chambers of commerce is supportive of the national role of the IDA and is not in conflict, provided the people concerned are competent and that there is suitable liaison between the regional group concerned and the IDA.

The Minister has been culpable in this matter in his speeches in this House and in the Dáil. In the Dáil he talked about the new small industry arrangement and I would like to deal with that later. At the very end of that speech he stated that in order that SFADCo would be free to concentrate all their energies on this new task in relation to indigenous small industry he was arranging that the IDA will resume full responsibility for industry other than small industry in the mid-west region. This was a major change in the functions of SFADCo and yet in a speech running to a number of paragraphs the Minister chose to use a very brief paragraph and he offered no explanation whatever for the proposed change.

I find it very unacceptable that the Minister should simply make this announcement of a radical change in the function of SFADCo without giving the slightest explanation for it. It seems to me, that where we are talking about public funds committed to a public body who have been doing useful work, where we are concerned with the disquiet there may well be within the mid-west region and possibly within the organisation in question, the public at least are entitled to an explanation why this major step has been taken. That explanation has not been given. Not only that, but in the speech the Minister made in the Seanad today he referred to criticism of the new move where SFADCo are concerned, criticism from many vocational groups in addition to political criticism, and he suggested that some of this had been engendered or whipped up—this is a phrase he used—at local level. If he re-read his first speech he would see that there was no explanation contained in it but if he felt that the criticism was unreasonable, and if he wanted to quell the Opposition, then it would have been logical to come back in this speech and to explain to this House why the move was made.

I am sorry the Minister is not here at the moment—I know it is understandable—but I regret he is not present when I am saying this, but we have again about two pages of a speech referring to the criticisms without giving a single explanation as to why there has been this change and why the promotional activity in which SFADCo have been engaging is not being carried out by them any more. It is simply not good enough and it is no wonder that there is criticism engendered not only at local level but at national level on an issue such as this. I would ask the Minister to state precisely why an explanation was not given in his speech in the Dáil or in his speech in the Seanad. I think we are entitled to ask why this move has been made. In my judgment if we seek indigenous development in this country, and indigenous development takes many forms, if we want to develop a fundamental regional policy more and more we have got to involve people within the provinces of this country in the total aspect of development whether it is industrial or tourist or whether it is promotional in New York or west Kerry.

If future industrial development is to be arranged in such a way that the sole promotional organisation in the entire country is to be the Industrial Development Authority, with every other organisation and unit such as chambers of commerce being spoon-fed from that source, you are going to get an extremely powerful organisation. They may be doing useful work but there will not be the same understanding of the regions because they will not be au fait with the problems there. It is most unfortunate and for that reason I must disagree with the new approach. In saying that I speak for many people on this side of the House.

The second aspect is new and concerns the comments of the Minister in his speech regarding small industries. Having read the comments, having gone through some of the background in SFADCo and having a certain knowledge of what has been happening in regional development in the past few years, I am forced practically to believe that this small industry innovation is merely introduced as something to allay the fears that may come from the other quarter where the promotional activity is concerned.

My reason for suggesting this is the Minister's comment about the small industry section. He said:

This is the proposal which I mentioned at the corresponding Stage in the other House, whereby SFADCo are to concentrate on the development of small industry in the mid-west in an intensive way not previously attempted in this country. This is a pilot scheme, the results of which will be evaluated at the end of 18 months or two years when decisions will be taken about extending the scheme to the rest of the country.

This is supposed to be, and I quote the Minister again, "a new dimension, a new thrust to SFADCo's work particularly in relation to industrial development". My objections to this innovation—they are my views, I do not speak for anyone else—are that much of this work is being carried out very adequately at present by other organisations. If the level of employment is going to be reduced in an organisation such as this through the dropping of the promotional part or if some people are going to continue to work in a new area, duplicating what is already being done by other national or regional agencies, this will merely create jobs in the bureaucracy which ultimately is going to catch up with us and have very undersirable results both in terms of the cost of such employment and in terms of the duplication that may occur.

Some years ago before the Industrial Development Authority developed regional structures there was the excellent development of the county development teams system—it came when Fianna Fáil were in Government but let us not quibble about who was responsible for it. It was applauded but in recent years it has not been given credit for the work which it did. It got away from this new fad of regionalisation where semi-State bodies are proliferating through regional outlets throughout the country, all of which are at variance with one another in the sense that different organisations are going into different regional groupings and there is no sense of identity within these regions. There is the very sensible development on an executive structure, namely, the county council structure. It is a structure based on an elective system with an executive, with a strong county management system with which I agree, and with chief executives in the various areas of engineering. There is also decentralisation of agricultural services through the county agricultural officers. Within this very sensible, strong and perhaps old-fashioned structure the county development system was developed and an arrangement was made under which a county development team was formed under the chairmanship of the county council. Its membership contained the county agricultural officer, the county engineer, the county manager and two or three other people.

Appointed to these counties—they designated 12 counties originally— were county development officers. There was an anomaly in that they were under the employment of the Department of Finance. The county development officers revolutionised development at local level within this country because for the first time the county councils, rather than being caught in the straightjacket of expenditure in the traditional areas of roads, hospitals and other such services where they were bound by the financial constrains of the rating system and the constraints of the Departments in Dublin, developed an attacking development role with funds being arranged through the Department of Finance. Excellent work was done by these county development officers who in my view are some of the finest people working in this country. They galvanised the energies of local business people and local communities. They acted as liaison officers between such communities and the various national bodies involved in development and all in all they did an excellent job.

In addition to that, they worked very closely with the small industries division of the Industrial Development Authority. The county development teams were involved at a local level and had a fundamental rapport with the community because they were involved in all types of services within the particular county and it was in my judgment the ideal basis on which to base small industries. The county development team examined applications for grants and for assistance of different kinds and if they recommended them they passed the applications to the relevant Government Department. The liaison and the skills of the county development officers were used to further the interest of these constituents within these counties. It was a most successful programme which led to substantial development.

The county development teams have been performing a useful function as I have described and they have been operating in the mid-west region and in these very counties where SFADCo are concerned, in Limerick, Clare and north Tipperary. In each of these counties you have a county development structure, you have a county development team and you have county development officers doing excellent work. When that is being done within those regions and done at such close grassroots level, what can another organisation moving in now do other than usurp what has been done competently already? Is it not a case of serious duplication? I do not believe that there has been any reason for the Minister to suggest any changes where small industries are concerned, where SFADCo are concerned. Very interestingly if we look at the 1976 annual report of the organisation on page nine, which concerns industrial development, we read:

As noted in previous reviews the company has in recent years applied itself to the problem of economic development and job creation in areas of the mid-west region which has so far not been able to attract either local or overseas industries. At year end the company had established an enterprise development unit which is geared towards identifying and marrying resources such as raw materials and people of enterprise and flair so that the two can be linked in a viable industry. Some success has already been achieved in this work and a number of small enterprises have been established.

I submit that without the Minister issuing a single word in his speech either in the Dáil or in the Seanad related to SFADCo's small industry function they have already such a function and can sensibly do it without all the trappings we are reading about in both today's speech and the speech in the Dáil.

We talk now about the move to get a small industry structure going under SFADCo and there are expectations for a bright future but that is in parallel with the promotional downgrading and the lack of any explanation whatsoever for taking away this function. The Minister referred in his speech a month ago in the Dáil and today in the Seanad to the fact that SFADCo are going to undertake such a function but there is no reference, there is not a single line, in regard to what the precise function will be, how it is going to operate or whether it is going to operate with people in the business community in Ennis, Limerick, Tipperary, Newport and such places. In my view it is going to involve serious duplication.

While we are talking about this, there has been a debate running for many years about the level of industrial development within the country and the proportion of it that lies between foreign investment and indigenous or Irish investments. I think it has been a debate that has lacked a lot of understanding because the reason obviously why we have such a concentration of foreign companies in this country is that we did not experience the industrial revolution. We had many political problems going back for a couple of centuries and we only started to develop an industrial structure in the last 20 or 30 years or so, or at least a serious structure. For that reason if we wanted to develop and to create wealth, exports and jobs in industry we had no alternative, and successive Governments had no alternative, to attracting companies from other countries. Because there was such a huge proportion of development in the foreign sector and a small amount in the national sector for the reasons which I have stated, unthinking people might tend to say "Well, why are we giving all the money to the foreigners and why do we not give it to the Irish?"

It has been my experience that the Industrial Development Authority and the county development structure have been doing a great deal to encourage Irish industry. We want to step back to remember that there are staggering advantages. There are advantages of grant levels up to outright grants to the extent of two-thirds of the total capital investment. There is complete relief on tax on export sales, regardless of the size of the company. There are training grants from AnCo. There is a huge concession in the taxation field in that no tax is paid. All in all there are huge advantages. If the Government are talking about private enterprise, Irish industry and the development of industry, it seems to me that the Irish companies or individuals who are going to get involved in this field already know about the entire range of incentives that exist from State agencies. They are already aware of the entire paraphernalia through the county development officers and local seminars in their towns arranged by regional officers of the Industrial Development Authority. For that reason I find this type of development very bureaucratic and spoonfeeding, and how a large organisation such as this can get involved in this area which has already been catered for, short of State investment in small industries, I cannot begin to think. But then State involvement is apparently not the philosophy of the Government; their philosophy is private enterprise. Again the paradox there is that for a Government that profess belief in the private development sector this is bureaucratic in the extreme and is unacceptable.

I would have preferred if SFADCo would look at an entirely different sector of the economy in which they could do revolutionary work which could lead to substantial development. While we have this quite enlightened policy towards industrial development and the creation of industrial jobs with the range of grants which are available, there has been a complete neglect for many years by different Governments of the value of the service sector to the economy. While there may have been complaints in the last year or two at the poor level of industrial development in Dublin and people may have tended to draw parallels with the booming west it is conveniently forgotten in all these arguments that a huge proportion of people working in Dublin are working in the service sector; in other words, in the insurance companies, in the banks, in the merchant banks, in Government Departments, in offices and in building societies. There is this huge proportion of employment in this city and in particular there are many girls of country background working in the city many of whom would be infinitely happier if they could live in their native county if they had the choice of doing so. It seems to me that the Minister might look into this question because in other countries, and in Britain in particular, concomitant with the commitment to industrial development in the regions, they have also developed a policy of encouraging service employment. They have given positive employment premiums and other incentives, such as reduced office rentals, to companies to move out of the large cities and set up in the provinces. It would have been much more sensible had SFADCo—of course they are not to blame; I am talking about the Government in this case—been requested to look at the service sector to see what could be done about redressing the imbalance in service employment by building up such a structure, as a counterpoint to Dublin, in the mid-west region.

I should like to end on the note that lessons could be learned. I made the point that lessons should have been learned long before now and we are all culpable because the lessons were not learned. But it is not too late to learn. The fundamental message of SFADCo is, if it has been a failure, why not scrap it? Of course it has not been a failure. If it has been a success, then why should a Government allow a regional structure with autonomy and funds voted by the Dáil on an annual basis to go into one region and starve Roscommon, Galway, Mayo, Leitrim, Cavan, Monaghan, Wexford, Waterford, Offaly and Laois of similar benefits? There is scope for this type of development in other parts of the country. It was suggested that a ridiculous stage might be reached if you had 20 or 30 SFADCos. It could be arranged very easily if, for example, the function performed by SFADCo were extended to include west Cork and Kerry. This was a proposal made by the previous Government. It might have been helped if within the western area the five western counties were included, with Donegal, for example, and there could have been a third unit in the north midlands. We are not talking about a huge number of bodies. We are talking about equal treatment for different parts of the country.

Whilst SFADCo has done excellent work, I do not believe it is a miracle. I would submit that, if similar units in other parts of the country were given the same types of incentives, the same types of fundings and the capacity to employ in their ranks some of the most intelligent people, the kind of activity we have seen in the mid-west would proliferate over the rest of the country. The taking away of the promotional role, what I would call the gimmick, in regard to small industries—and it is stated in the annual report of SFADCo that this has already been done—is a trend towards reverting to centralisation while many of us are trying to move in the direction of decentralisation. In our Government we had a proposal for a western development board and we were criticised for not delivering on it. Some of that criticism may well have been justified but much of it was not justified because the development of any new structure, or new body, within the provinces, in the process of which one may take away certain powers from Departments, requires, through the Department of the Public Service, a colossal amount of liaison and reporting. When one tries to get into the business of seeking views and reports and forming the liaison necessary subsequently with 14 Departments of State, one can imagine the problem there is in arriving at a delivery deadline. For many reasons Government Departments are reluctant to lose their functions or see their functions usurped.

We have had the western development issue and the SFADCo issue. We have recently, too, had a major shift of policy within the Industrial Development Authority in the downgrading of previous job priority areas in the west and mid-west. We had a speech delivered announcing that Dublin had a very low level of development in the period of 1969 to 1973 in comparison with Leitrim and Roscommon, a comparison I consider ludicrous. It was suggested that Dublin at 21 per cent had the smallest proportionate percentage increase in real income per head, which is half the 41 per cent of increase in Leitrim or 43 per cent in Galway.

Acting Chairman (Mr. Lyons)

What is the Senator quoting from?

Mr. Staunton

I am quoting from the Evening Press of February 3. A comparison of proportionate increase is meaningless when one takes the baseline of income in this city and the baseline that existed in a county as poverty starved as Leitrim. There is no comparison. Leitrim would need to have an increase at a rate of about 300 per cent to match an increase of about 20 per cent in this city. This trend is undesirable. Whilst we agree with the Bill, whilst we support the Government very fully in regard to the provisions, whilst we compliment SFADCo on the work they have done to date in their own interests and the example they have been in the national interest, we have strong reservations about the moves which are apparently afoot in the two areas I have mentioned and for the reasons which I have stated.

Mr. Kitt

I welcome the opportunity of speaking on the Bill. I support the purpose of the Bill in providing further financing for SFADCo. I should like to add my voice to those speakers who have commended the great work that SFADCo have done. We have read the reports of the industries they have attracted and the factory space provided for industrialists. I would hope that SFADCo would be extended to other areas and that county development teams would play a part in helping to establish industries all over the country.

I agree with Senator Honan that there has been a great deal of exaggerated criticism of what the Minister said. Senator Keating made allowances for her, because she is a new Member but I think that, as she said, there has been a twisting of the Minister's remarks about the emphasis on the small industries. People who talk about the downgrading of SFADCo are twisting the Minister's remarks. There is a clear role and a defined responsibility for SFADCo.

Under the Minister's proposals SFADCo will have power to allocate funds and to make decisions, with ultimate responsibility directly to the Minister. I do not see any difficulty in reconciling what SFADCo will do with the role of the IDA. Neither do I see any vaccum in industrial development which would be dangerous if the IDA were doing something completely unrelated to SFADCo. SFADCo and the IDA, even though there may be a different emphasis in their policy, will certainly be inter-related. There will be no conflict between the two organisations.

I would like to deal with the idea of SFADCo not being involved in promotion of the medium and large sized industries. The Minister made the point very clearly in his opening statement when talking about the promotion of medium and large sized industries. He said:

Since this activity directly involves, as I understand it, only some 2 per cent of SFADCo's total staff of about 200 and since the IDA have in any case always been involved almost exclusively in the promotion of new large enterprises in the region—for example Alcan—the change does not represent a downgrading in any way of the role of the development company and it is wrong to think that it does.

What we are really talking about here is a 2 per cent activity by SFADCo in the promotion of the medium and large sized industry. I would question how much promotion SFADCo have done of overseas industries. What offices have they outside the country? I think the answer is that they have very few. They have been doing a great job in promoting native indigenous industry and that is why the area has prospered so well and that is why the mid-west area has benefited so much from their work. They still have the autonomy which is very important. They will be able to concentrate on that area in the mid-west and also on the estuary and I think that the clear role that the Minister has given them will be of immense benefit to that area.

I would also like to commend the former chairman, Brendan O'Regan, and his staff and I wish the new chairman and his staff every success in the years ahead. I hope that, as I said at the outset, this activity by SFADCo will be extended to other areas so that in the other parts of the west and in the other disadvantaged areas generally we would get this kind of industrial development which would benefit ultimately every part of the country.

Dr. West

I would also like to join with other speakers in complimenting SFADCo on their work throughout the years in bringing new life and hope to a region which was deprived and showing what could be done with vision, dynamism and with the right philosophy. I would also like to say how much we owe to the former chairman, Mr. O'Regan, who put his personal stamp on the whole operation and the success of the enterprise is to a great extent due to his vision and commitment.

I am in favour of the principle of this Bill. I have no doubts about the extension of borrowing powers and the added finance which the company need but I want to confine my remarks to one aspect of the development of this company. It is an important point the Government ought to bear in mind. The semi-State bodies were set up to fill the gap, and this is a classic example, left by private enterprise and Government finance plus semi-State bodies have done a tremendous job. There is no better illustration of this than in the case of SFADCo. In recent times there has been a tendency to pull back from the original dynamic philosophy which underlay semi-State bodies and there is a natural tension, but not an unhappy relationship, between the civil service and the semi-State bodies, particularly between the Department of State involved with a particular semi-State body and the semi-State body itself. Because the semi-State bodies were started by people from the private sector they got an injection of dynamic philosophy from that sector of the economy and we are lucky to have had outstanding people, such as Mr. O'Regan, as chairmen of these bodies whose work and dedication has done so much to set them on the right way.

In recent years, however, there has been a tendency for the tentacles of the civil service to stretch too far and to tend to enmesh the semi-State bodies. This occurs in many ways. There has been a tendency, for example, to appoint former civil servants and acting civil servants to the board of semi-State bodies and, in some cases, to appoint the chairmen of semi-State bodies from the civil service. This tendency is wrong and the Government must right it. I have nothing against the individuals involved. I believe we have an excellent civil service. It is sometimes too big and we should, perhaps, consider paring it back but the point is that the philosophy in a semi-State body and the philosophy of the civil service are entirely different. We want to make sure that our semi-State bodies are at a distance from the civil service and from the particular Department involved in the administration of the semi-State body as far as the Legislature is concerned. We have a duty here and, in the case of SFADCo, civil servants have been appointed to the board. This is wrong.

There is another point a number of speakers have mentioned. That is the problem of the remuneration of the chief officer of the company. The point was made very forcibly by Senator Mulcahy and I entirely agree with what he said. In every Bill we now have dealing with semi-State bodies we get a clause—I quote from the Minister's speech—stating:

The Bill also provides that the level of remuneration and allowances of the chief officer of the company shall be subject to my approval given with the consent of the Minister for the Public Service.

This echoes the philosophy in the Devlin Report in which a sort of blanket ceiling is put on the top of all chief executives in semi-State bodies so that they cannot be paid more than the secretary of the Department involved. That is totally wrong and Senator Mulcahy has made the point very eloquently. If semi-State bodies are to continue, and if the dynamism which has been a feature of SFADCo is to remain, then what we have to do is get the best man for the job and, if that means paying him more than a senior civil servant, we have to pay him more. I am totally opposed to this clause. It is indicative of a philosophy I oppose.

In the period of the last Administration Senators who were here then may recall that we had a very vigorous debate in which I tried—sometimes singlehanded—to resist the decision of the Minister for Agriculture to bring An Foras Talúntais in under the aegis of the Department of Agriculture. The present Government have seen fit to reverse that. It is not a political matter. I would not care what Government were in office. I would certainly have attacked any attempt to spancel the excellent work done by An Foras Talúntais and the freedom which the members of that organisation had. This applies in every semi-State area. The semi-State bodies do a very important job and the reason they do it so well is because they have had on their board and they have had as their chief executives tough guys from the private sector. These are the people who should be running these organisations. They are the men who have experience in industry. The industrial philosophy is not the same as the philosophy of the civil service. They are quite different philosophies.

Anybody who has experience of the two sectors knows this. The civil service is a permanent part of our Government. Governments change but the civil service remains. It has a great deal of control and it is up to us as legislators to ensure that the semi-State bodies are kept at the right distance from the civil service and, if there is tension between the civil service and the semi-State bodies, then that is a good thing generally and a healthy thing. The former chief executive of SFADCo told me on one occasion that he had spent his life fighting off the bureaucrats. That is what a chief executive in a semi-State body should be doing. He should be pushing against the civil service. He should be developing. He should be innovating and the innovations that SFADCo have brought about are a tribute to him and a tribute to the philosophy under which he operated, namely, the philosophy which comes from the free enterprise sector of our economy. I know that there are, of course, exceptions to this rule and there are people who can and have made the transition, but I am protesting against a tendency at trying to bring the semi-State bodies, operating independently, under civil service control. If that is done they will lose their identity, lose their way and their individuality, and they will not fulfil the function that they were set up to fulfil. There is a danger this could happen in the case of SFADCo. There is danger it will happen in many other organisations and here I wish to register a vigorous protest while, at the same time, supporting the main purpose of the Bill.

Professor Hillery

I welcome this Bill providing as it does substantial improvements in the financing of SFADCo. I welcome, too, the focus on the development of small industries. I share the confidence placed in SFADCo by the Minister in the challenging and innovative task of promoting the development of small indigenous industry in the mid-west region. Speaking of innovation. SFADCo itself with its splendid record of achievement is a showpiece of innovation. I would like to join in the tributes to the retired chairman of SFADCo, Mr. Brendan O'Regan. His vision, energy and intense commitment have been crucial to the success of SFADCo over the years. While the Shannon Industrial Estate is clearly a success story, the change of direction in the work of SFADCo to which the Minister has referred should lead to the correction of any imbalances in the industrial structure which now exist in the mid-west region. The acceleration of job creation, especially in the smaller towns in the region, will breathe new life into many static and declining communities. The highly experienced professionals in SFADCo will, I submit, complement rather than duplicate the work of existing agencies in generating jobs in small industries. The economic benefits which will accrue from the further development of small industry will, of course, be welcome but equally important will be the contribution to the social fabric of these small communities. The further development of local industries will mean that many workers will be spared much time and expense associated with travelling long distances to work but, more importantly, they will find jobs in or near their native towns and villages. The accumulated knowledge and experience of SFADCo will be brought to bear on attracting, selecting and promoting industry, perhaps producing products to meet local as well as national and international needs. With regard to the status of SFADCo, surely the delegation of grant-giving powers can only emphasise and enhance the regional role of SFADCo.

In conclusion, I welcome both the Bill and the pilot scheme which is now being launched to promote the development of small industry in the mid-west region.

Mr. Howard

As a Senator from the region, I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill. I welcome the purpose of the Bill which is to provide additional funds for the Shannon Free Airport Development Company. I have reservations with regard to the decision to remove the responsibility for the promotion of major industry in the region from SFADCo and transfer it to the IDA and I will deal with that in due course. I sincerely hope that what I do have to say in that regard will be off the mark and that some time in the future I will be able to concur with the views expressed by Senator Hillery now. They were confident and optimistic and I hope they will be proven to be correct.

The purpose of the Bill is to increase the funds available to the Shannon Free Airport Development Company under three headings, share capital, a big increase from £25 million to £45 million, the repayable advances increased from £17 million to £22 million, and the grant-in-aid from £17 million to £22 million. I think in view of comments made earlier here it would be as well that I should remark that on the last occasion the funds available to Shannon Free Airport Development Company were increased was in July of 1974 by the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, now Senator Justin Keating. The funds available to Shannon then were increased by a total of £22 million and at 31 December 1976, of the amount of £17 million provided under the heading of repayable advances, £3.2 million was unspent and, of the £17 million provided under the heading of the grant-in-aid, £1.8 million was unspent. Of the total funds, therefore, provided under the 1974 Act, at the end of December 1976 a total of £5 million was unspent. It is against that factual background that statements by the chairman of the board that they were short of cash can be measured.

A number of very useful contributions have been made today from both sides of the House. One that impressed me very much was that made by Senator Mulcahy. I refer to him because he is from the other side, but it is significant to note that he has a background of experience in business and in management. His welcome for this Bill was conditional. He used the word "misgivings". He outlined his own experience of the SFADCo industrial estate. He referred to the SPS factory there which he correctly pointed out was one of the first attracted to the region by SFADCo. He spoke of the progress that has taken place in the region and he spoke of the vision and confidence of the team of men responsible for that progress. He concluded in a subtle way by saying that he hoped the proposals would be successful and he said he was happy to leave it to the Minister. I think that is significant.

Now I would also like to refer to the fact that criticism has been levelled at those who have expressed reservations in regard to this proposal. I have expressed reservations. I intend to express them today but I want to assure the House that the reservations I am expressing are being genuinely and objectively expressed. I am not doing it for the purpose of seeking headlines, as it were, but rather to ventilate and express here the misgivings that many people in the region have.

With regard to the Minister's speech this afternoon the reservations which have been expressed have had some result. I detect in his speech a greater spelling out of what he envisages may happen and I welcome that. Were it not for the fact that he said that what SFADCo will not have is responsibility for promotion in the region, apart from the industrial estate, of medium and large-sized industry it would not be necessary for me to say anything this afternoon. I would ask the Minister to bear in mind what I have to say about it and to have a further re-think on that question of removing total responsibility for the promotion of major industry from what is a proven promotional organisation.

The Minister also referred to what he described as a certain amount of opposition and criticism to the new arrangements which had been whipped up at local level. That may or may not be so but it is useful perhaps to identify sources other than political sources that have expressed reservations in this regard. The Clare Champion of 10 February 1978, in the course of a leading article, expressed growing concern that SFADCo's powers had been severely eroded. They expressed their concern also for the future of county development teams, for the promotion of major industries within the Shannon industrial estate and for the development of the Shannon Estuary. They said there were many people in Clare, including leaders of industry and commerce, who believed the decision of the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy was a bad one.

Similar views were expressed also in a leader in the Limerick Leader on 11 February 1978. They described that decision of the Minister as a retreat from regional development and an advance towards centralisation. They asked was this the time and place to deprive remote, peripheral areas of a promoting agency's full potential. They described it as a serious error of judgment and said it had sent a shiver of foreboding throughout the region. That leading article continued to say that much as the Minister might like to talk about giving a new thrust in dimension the naked truth is that he intends to strip SFADCo of overall supervision for job creation in the region. Therefore, I do not know whether it can be said that the whipping up—and I am using the Minister's term there—can be criticised. The views expressed and the reservations of many people, including the editors of two local papers, and the views and fears of people involved in commerce and industry, have to be taken into consideration. They have to be expressed and answered. I hope the Minister, when replying, will spell out in greater detail what exactly is intended.

I welcome the financial provisions of the Bill. I want to join with the Minister and indeed with other speakers in the tributes paid to men like Brendan O'Regan, Paul Quigley and their colleagues on that team for their vision and dedication, in the development of SFADCo and the mid-western region over a long number of years. Their commitment and ability to get things done resulted—as Senator Mulcahy expressed very effectively—in the transformation of a mudland into a thriving town and industrial area. I would like to join others in welcoming Mr. McCabe, the new chairman of SFADCo and wish him well in his new position. The history of the airport, of the development company and of their remarkable progress has been outlined here and elsewhere. But, in that 20-year period, they tackled the problems of the region, provided employment, industry, developed tourism there and brought a surprising degree of prosperity to the area. Their record in that field has been proven. Perhaps some people would describe the methods they used as novel. There are the duty-free shops, the promotion of the industrial estate, of service industry. In the field of tourism there has been the unique establishment of the castle tours, banquets, the Rent-an-Irish Cottage scheme and the development of Shannon town itself. There were substantial odds, local difficulties and many disadvantages but SFADCo succeeded in overcoming these and their record to date is impressive. Almost one-and-a-quarter million passengers have used the airport. Sixteen thousand tons of terminal freight were handled by the airport in 1976. Over 2,000 jobs were created. I understand that exports from the industrial estate exceeded £100 million last year. There are 8,000 employed in Shannon Airport and there is a population of 8,000 there.

Mr. O'Malley

All the rabbits are gone.

Mrs. Honan

Hear, hear.

Mr. Howard

I would prefer that we would not rake out old skeletons from the political closets because, if we do, I can engage with the best. Let me tell the Minister——

Mrs. Honan

Not where Shannon is concerned.

Mr. McGlinchey

The Senator might quote James Dillon.

Mr. Howard

I would regard that as being a sterile and worthless operation this afternoon. There is more involved. I was just coming to the point that, of that 8,000 population of Shannon, 2,400 are children. It is their future, jobs and livelihood with which we are dealing this afternoon. Perhaps there are Senators who would like to engage in that exercise. There may be another occasion when I will not feel as deeply committed to what is involved here as I do, when I will welcome the opportunity of engaging in that exercise.

Mr. McGlinchey

I take it the Senator is glad James Dillon's prophesy did not come true.

Mr. Howard

I will not participate in that discussion this evening. An answer was given in the autumn of 1970 in the square in Ennis when an old patriarch of the Fianna Fáil party used that phrase. Mind you, it has not been used in Ennis since. I do not propose to give it. It would be sidetracking what we are discussing and the point I am trying to make. Therefore, I might say to my colleague, Senator McGlinchey, that there will be another time and I will welcome it.

Mr. McGlinchey

Beidh lá eile ag an bpaorach.

Mr. Howard

It is against this background of solid progress and achievement that I question the wisdom at this stage of removing from SFADCo the responsibility for promoting major industry in the region.

I come to a matter it is relevant to raise at this stage, that is the administration of Shannon town itself. It has not been touched on here and it is necessary that we should comment on it. Shannon is a unique town. Senator Mulcahy referred to its growth. It is now the second largest town in County Clare. It is comprised of people, not alone from many counties, but from many countries. It is a unique situation, there are changing needs but community bonds are being built there. I believe the time has arrived when the administration of Shannon town would best be solved by a local-elected council.

I want now—and I have already covered it a great deal—to revert to the consternation felt throughout the area with regard to the Minister's statement of 31 January. In the absence of a more thorough explanation I disapprove, as do many other people the decision to confine the activities of the Shannon Free Airport Development Company to industries with an employment content of not more than 50 people and capital assets of less than £300,000. Senator Cranitch spoke earlier and Senator Kitt re-echoed what Senator Cranitch had said. They said they welcomed this new dimension, this new attempt to promote small industry and to give SFADCo total responsibility for it. This is nothing new. Shannon Free Airport Development Company have had the responsibility for many years of promoting small industry in the region.

Mr. Mulcahy

Not to give grants.

Mr. Howard

Accepted. I want to make this point. I know of no small industry, or no attempt by small industries, that did not receive other than the utmost support, encouragement and help from SFADCo. Therefore, I do not accept that there is anything new, with the exception of the power to give grants, involved in the present decision. Perhaps, taken on its own, the Minister's decision and statement would not have excited the same degree of concern in the area but when taken in conjunction with an article in the Evening Press of Friday, 3 February 1978 headed “Job Targets Move Off Rural Areas”—the man quoted being Michael Killeen, Managing Director of the IDA—which contended that in a major shift of policy the IDA were planning to downgrade previous job priority areas in the west and midlands as part of a new blueprint to tackle unemployment in severely hit urban areas, then real concern and worry were caused in the area. We have known SFADCo. We can trust them to deliver the goods. In view of that statement those of us in the mid-west are entitled to have reservations as to the capacity and the commitment of the IDA to deliver the goods in the mid-western region. We believe that their first commitment will be what has been expressed in that article, that is not to the west and the midlands but to the east and the bigger centres of population in the east.

There are problem areas referred to in many parts of the country. We hear west of the Shannon referred to. There is another area to which I want to refer, that is west of another river, west of the Fergus. It is the most disadvantaged area that we have in County Clare and perhaps in the mid-western region. It is short of employment opportunities. Several attempts have been made in that region by SFADCo and by the county development team to promote industries in small towns and villages. They have had but a limited measure of success. The greatest natural resource in that area is the Shannon Estuary. I recall a short time ago reading a report entitled "The Shannon Estuary, An Outline Development Framework". That report projected that 5,500 jobs could be created on the estuary by 1986. That is the greatest opportunity of providing employment, not alone in the west Clare area, but along north Kerry and west Limerick. Therefore, the question of confidence and capacity as to the organisation that should promote it arises. I repeat that I would have greater confidence in the capacity of SFADCo to do that job than I would in the IDA in view of the statement of their managing director on 3 February last.

A good deal of play has been made of the fact that it has been said that SFADCo have welcomed this development. I accept that they have welcomed their new capacity to make grants available to small industry. Frankly, I doubt if that team in Shannon, in SFADCo have welcomed the removal of their responsibility in the field of major industry. I understand that management at some level discussed this matter with the Minister a few days ago. I do not know whether or not they conveyed to him that they were satisfied. Perhaps the Minister would indicate what happened there. There are people who feel that this may well represent the beginning of the end for the Shannon Free Airport Development Company in all but in name.

They have three main functions in the region, the principal one being the promotion of industry. If the promotion of major industry is removed from that section, their focus and their capacity in that field would be very little better than that of a county development team. If, as I hope—and as I think is necessary—we get a locally-elected authority in Shannon Airport, Shannon town, then SFADCo's second function, that of administering the town will be removed from them. They would then be left with their third function in which they have been most highly successful, the promotion of tourism in the region, the castle tours, the banquets, the Rent-an-Irish Cottage scheme and various other projects in that field which they have so successfully and effectively promoted. I want to pose a question raised with me: if the IDA can now feel free to come in and assume the functions of promoting major industry in the region, is it not likely that Bord Fáilte may attempt a similar take-over where the tourist functions of SFADCo are concerned?

Finally, I am concerned as to what may happen the team of men who comprised the Shannon Free Airport Development Company, men of expertise, of achievement and of great commitment. I understand that the IDA are in the process of opening a regional office in Limerick. It is conceivable that some of the Shannon team, the younger men, may drift there. The older men will retire and vacancies may not be filled. Therefore, at the end of this trial period of 18 months to two years the team that has so successfully promoted that region may well be dispersed and the outcome of the events of the 18 months before us may be immaterial. I do not want to sound too pessimistic but I question now, again in relation to the statement of the chief of the IDA, with the removal of the responsibility for the promotion of major industries from SFADCo, have we seen the last of the Burlingtons, the Syntexes, the Alcans, Beechams and Ferenkas? Have we seen the last of these in the area until the imbalance about which the head of the IDA is so concerned is rectified, namely, the provision of more jobs and more industry in the east? Even though I have the feeling I am misunderstood at times, I said at the outset that I would endeavour objectively to put the other side of the case. That is what I have tried to do. I have done so because of a genuine conviction that a mistake is being made, that employment opportunities, in the hope of attracting new industry to the region, will suffer as a result of this decision.

I welcome the Bill in so far as it provides additional funding for Shannon. But because of the questions raised by the editors of our local papers, by the leaders of commerce and industry and of organised labour in the region, I would suggest to the Minister that he should at the conclusion of this discussion reply adequately to allay the genuine fears felt in the region.

Mr. Kiely

I will be brief. I welcome this Bill which provides further finance for the Shannon Free Airport Development Company. I am sure the substantial increase will allay the fears of the chairman of not having sufficient funds to meet commitments and ensure that projects will be developed in Shannon.

Senator Molony outlined already the company's objectives. I shall take the liberty of repeating them. The company are dedicated to ensuring the growth of Shannon Airport through trade, passengers and services and to create a healthy prosperity in the mid-west region through sound industrial development harmonising the necessary activities in industry, tourism and airport promotion and in town development so as to make the greatest possible contribution to the economy of the west and of using our experience and facilities to help also the people of less-developed countries. These company objectives have been well achieved and are commendable. Shannon Airport is handling air traffic at high levels, both in passengers and freight, from America and Europe. Shannon Airport is the gateway from the west to Europe. There has also been the development of the industrial town at Shannon, the industrial estates at Raheen and Galvone, and other industries in towns such as Drumcollogher and Newcastle West in my area. SFADCo's success has been proven also in the promotion of tourism, through mediaeval banquets at Bunratty Castle, the Folk Museum and Rent-an-Irish Cottage scheme. These are great achievements for Shannon despite the fate prophesised and forecast by some leading politicians at the time the establishment of Shannon was envisaged. I would congratulate SFADCo and Mr. Brendan O'Regan, its chairman since its formation in 1959. He is a man who got things done and who in turn inspired others to get things done. He has now retired. I am delighted to see he remains on the board and that his advice will be available to them. I should like to congratulate his successor, Mr. McCabe. I am sure his experience will render him worthy of the job in which I wish him every success.

What I welcome most in the Minister's speech is the proposal that SFADCo concentrate on the development of small industry in the mid-west region in an intensive way not previously attempted in this country. The Minister added:

This is a pilot scheme, the results which will be evaluated at the end of 18 months or two years when decisions will be taken about extending the scheme to the rest of the country.

The need for such indigenous industries is great. For example, small industries manufacturing such items as are necessary to modernise our farming are essential to our economy, such as labour-saving devices and other items necessary for modern farm buildings, milking units, and the provision of other vital commodities so necessary to farmers in the modernisation of their farmyards and holdings in order to achieve full output from agriculture and compete with other EEC farming countries.

Other industries are needed also for the production of commodities catering for the manufacturing needs and demands of the immediate area, such as joinery industries catering for the building industry. I should like to see such small industries or factories sited in small parishes. Heretofore the practice was that such industries were sited in large estates, such as Galvone, Shannon town itself and Raheen. Then there are others sited in such towns at Newcastle West and Drumcollogher as I have mentioned already. This resulted in people leav-the land and going to live in towns. Ireland is becoming urbanised, or suburbanised if you like. This is detrimental to community life in rural Ireland. That is why I should like to see these factories sited in small parishes maintaining the parish identity and life in rural Ireland ensuring that future generations are brought up in the environment to which we were used.

The dairy industry is being rationalised at present and creameries in these small parishes are closing down. Such creameries closing down or being vacated could provide sites for such small industries as I have advocated. Perhaps the Minister or SFADCo, whoever is responsible for the provision of these small industries, would take this into consideration, ensuring that rural and community life especially be developed so that we do not have ultimately an urbanised society.

There has been talk and reservations have been expressed about the downgrading of SFADCo. I do not agree and I cannot understand the motivations for expressing such reservations. I can see them motivated only by those who may envy the present Government, and especially the Minister, on their success in introducing this desirable and worth-while Bill. We in the mid-west region—which embraces Limerick— recognise the efforts of the Shannon Free Airport Development Company since their formation. We are most thankful to them. I hope the Bill will be successful in its operation, and most successful in creating the small industries I have mentioned already.

Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy (Mr. O'Malley)

All the people who had the reservations have been able to depart. Thank God their reservations were not getting them down too much. There are a number of points I would like to make in reply to the debate. In my calculation, 98 per cent of the debate was about what I said in regard to the powers of SFADCo; 2 per cent of it was about the Bill. I am not saying that the Chair was wrong in any way because I introduced the matter myself and, on a Second Stage, we are entitled to discuss the power or the functions of the company generally. I am afraid, however, that there were a number of misapprehensions from the very start. The first speaker this evening, Senator Molony, said that I should not take away the powers that SFADCo have.

I would invite the Senator to detail to me any power which SFADCo have which has been taken away from them. The answer is none. He went on then to say that I was denuding the company of all their powers. I invite him to specify what power they have been denuded of. Then he went on to say that he doubted very much if the board were happy with what I propose. I already dealt with that latest point in the Dáil when I said that board were extremely enthusiastic about the task I had asked them to undertake. Not alone were the board enthusiastic but the executive of the company were equally enthusiastic about it. A later speaker made the suggestion that the board had put up certain suggestions to me. That, of course, is true. They did put up certain suggestions—they were radically different from my reply to them. I will not go into that matter any more.

The board and the executive responded with considerable enthusiasm to the challenge that I put them. If we get some of these basic misapprehensions out of the way it will not be necessary for me to go into every point that was made in the debate. One of them is that SFADCo have not had statutory industrial promotion powers, they have been agents of the IDA in the mid-western region. There is no question of any powers being taken from them. They were associated with the IDA to some extent in the promotion of large industry in the region. Five examples have been given, Alcan, Beecham, Ferenka, Syntex and Burlington. Each of those was sponsored by and promoted by the IDA. That is the situation as it was and that is the situation as it will continue to be. I can only hope there will be more than just the five major industries referred to here promoted and sponsored by the IDA. I have no doubt, as I said in the Dáil, that they will have the help and the co-operation of SFADCo in the promotion of further industries of this kind, which we hope will come to the mid-western region.

Senator Keating invited me to spell out in some detail the sentence I used at the foot of page 5 of my speech. I said that:

I should now like to deal with a matter which does not arise out of this Bill but which I regard as being of considerable significance—in the most positive sense—to the future economic and social development of the mid-west region, and, I believe eventually—by example and extension—to the rest of the country.

It was noteworthy that the views of the Fine Gael and Labour Parties were quite different on this matter, as they were in the Dáil, where the Labour Party supported my views in relation to SFADCo. In response to Senator Keating's constructive attitude I will spell out what I mean by "example and extension to the rest of the country" what is being proposed here.

No agency in this country has ever concentrated or had the time or the resources to concentrate in a major way on the development of small industry whether it was indigenous or not. The IDA, an immensely successful body, have been under pressure since their establishment from successive Governments, and not least by myself, to produce jobs. Jobs are measured—perhaps we made an error in some respects in this way—in terms of numbers. They are not measured by other criteria. The public judge them in terms of numbers only irrespective of the value of the job, the worth of it, the technology underlying it, the investment associated with it or whatever. The IDA have been under constant pressure, they are still under it, and I am the one above all perhaps responsible for keeping them under that pressure. If the IDA have to deliver jobs in large numbers—they are doing it and they will continue to do it—it is a fact of life, whether we like it or not, that those jobs will have to be got in North America, in Japan, in Germany and in other places to a lesser extent. That is where the great thrust of the IDA's promotional effort will have to continue to be aimed at.

On reflecting on this over a period of years, I can see a situation whereby the IDA by its very success will create for us a major social sociological problem in ten years' time. Seventy per cent, 80 per cent or even more of our industry will be foreign-owned and foreign-controlled. I am worried in a long-term way about that. Our short-term needs are met by the success of the IDA but we may be creating a long-term problem. I will not interfere in any way with the IDA's activities. They are regarded by the people of America and elsewhere, as the premier industrial development organisation in the world. The British are now learning from them. The activities of the North and East of England development board and of the Welsh development board, intimate that the British are now learning from us about 10 years after the IDA acquired all this expertise. The fact that they are being copied worldwide is proof of their success. I will not change their operation in any way. They are professionals and they are highly successful. This country has a great deal to be thankful to them for.

At the same time we cannot afford to neglect our own people. We cannot afford not to make an intensive effort with our own people. We cannot afford not to work parallel with IDA's activities. Another organisation pressing for industrial development in this country, in a way that is not in competition with the IDA but parallel to it, will achieve useful results without in any sense cutting across the efforts of the IDA or duplicating them. The most successful regional organisation in the country, SFADCo, should be the one to spearhead an intensive all-out effort to develop entrepreneurship and industrial development among our own people. We will not develop industrial development of an indigenous nature by thinking in terms of plants of 1,000 or 1,500 people. Many people might think that it is no longer appropriate or useful to think in terms of plants of 1,000 or 1,500 people, that because they are going to deal with Irish people and encourage the latent entrepreneurship which is in Irish people, they are of necessity going to deal with the smaller type of industry. It has never been done in this way before. SFADCo are being asked now to undertake a task that is of major national importance to anyone who cares to think about it. They see it that way and I know that they will respond. It is a difficult task, but it is no more difficult than the very daunting task that faced those people in Shannon Airport in 1957 and 1958, when they were lucky if one plane in 24 hours landed at that airport. They once had 20, 30 and 40 planes on the ground together. That must have been a daunting task but it was tackled with great spirit, determination and ability. That task was fulfilled, the problem was overcome.

Deputy Desmond made a very useful speech in the Dáil on this point. He put his finger on one of the difficulties which a company like SFADCo has when it is successful. Deputy Desmond at column 122 of the Official Report of 31 January said:

There tends to be an appalling tradition here that if one sets up some structure which proves to be a success, as has been SFADCo, that means permanency. That is a dangerous illusion. Perhaps there should be another revolutionary step forward in the structure in that region.

SFADCo were aware of this. I did not approve of the direction in which they intended to go and I steered them on to another direction. There was great enthusiasm within the company for the direction into which I had steered them. The board, although they had certain other ideas in mind in the social sphere and things of that kind, are now very enthusiastic about it. They fully realise that the primary objectives of this company must be economic and must be seen to be economic.

There were two ways in which I could have gone about this task. I could have established yet another State board for small indigenous industries or whatever. It would have taken two years or so to have legislation passed and staff recruited. It would take another two years to get it working as an efficient organisation. It would take perhaps another two years to acquire a reasonable amount of experience in this field. It would have been quite foolish to start yet another board from scratch when I had available to me a highly competent board with a great deal of experience in these matters, with men on the board and in the executive who had shown themselves down through the years to be not just competent, but above all else to be innovative.

This is innovation. Innovation may offend some people but innovation is what gets countries going. Innovation, whether some people like it or not, is what we are going to have because we will go down the drain if we are not prepared to innovate. I make no apology for changing things for the better. If change, of necessity, creates some tension in some areas I apologise for the tension and the worry and the misapprehension. There is no need for it, because this company will make progress on these lines.

Small industry is not the only area of development that I see open to this company as the alternative to and running parallel with the IDA. One of the difficulties that we as a nation suffer from all the time is a lack of technology. I have been fascinated at times how other countries, even ones which ten or 20 years ago would have been looked on as comparatively backward, have managed to acquire foreign technology not by bringing in foreign firms to put subsidiaries or branches of their foreign companies there, but by buying the technology through a licensing arrangement or otherwise, and training their people to use it and to benefit from it. One example is South Korea. In 1953 was there a more devastated country in the world than South Korea, when that terrible war that had swept over the entire country twice was at last over? Look at South Korea today. South Korea is not dotted with the Korean subsidiaries of the American multinationals, although there is a share of them there, it is dotted with American, German and other advanced technology in Korean firms run by Koreans and managed by Koreans. If they can do that why cannot the Irish do it?

These are the kind of opportunities open to SFADCo now. It might be convenient for everybody that SFADCo remain a localised, or regionalised second-class IDA. It is not my way of looking at a company that achieved a considerable objective against all the odds. That company have the ability to achieve further considerable objectives no matter how many begrudgers there may be in the early days when that task is set about. I have confidence in them to develop in that way that I see it. I have confidence in them to grapple with these difficulties and to undertake these tasks and solve them for the benefit of the country. By picking them to do it rather than setting up a new board I have demonstrated that confidence in them. The feedback from them is that they appreciate that confidence and that they will not fail in the task.

The extension of that to other areas, about which Senator Keating raised queries, can be seen in either of two ways. I would not rule out either, or the possibility of both. If at the end of two years SFADCo have developed, as I am sure they will, a useful working and successful strategy for the intensive development of small industry in the mid-western region, I would see the experience, the knowledge and the plans that they have developed being extended to all parts of the country, either by sending a SFADCo man into each of the regions, or alternatively and perhaps in addition, expanding the operations of SFADCo in this respect outside the mid-western region. They have already expanded beyond the region to some extent. One of their major castles is in County Galway and they were instrumental in helping the establishment of this thatched cottage village development in Renvyle, County Galway, and in Ballycastle in County Mayo and perhaps in some other places in the west too. There will be no difficulty in that regard. Either opportunity is open to them, depending on how things stand in two years' time.

One could see this company developing as a sort of West of Ireland Development Board rather than just a Shannon Development Board. They are tackling problems which, while they are problems for the whole country are most particularly problems for the west. The alternative of extension is that one or more SFADCo people could be sent into each IDA region to implement the SFADCo plan for small industrial development in that region when that plan has been worked out and shown to be successful.

In relation to small industries, the criterion by which SFADCo will be judged is not a criterion which some may have thought appropriate, the number of jobs that they will create at the end of two years. The criterion is how they go about the job and how relevant the plans and strategies that they achieve will be to the development of the indigenous industry in the whole country. They have a free hand as far as I am concerned as to how they go about it, but I want them to go into every town, village, and parish in the mid-west and scour it out in the most intensive way that it was ever done to develop any possibility of local enterprise there. I would like to see that local enterprise based on the local natural products. In the long run that is the surest type of development. I do not care how small a proposal may be. Even if it is only to start with two or three people, the important thing is to get it started. SFADCo can and will do that. It will be the first time that SFADCo will have grant giving powers up to a maximum, at the moment anyway, of about £200,000. They can write the cheque themselves there and then. They had never been in a position to do that. It is very important that they would now be in such a position. They are glad that they are entirely their own masters in this respect and that they will not have to refer to anyone in regard to anything.

While all this is going on the development of the mid-west region, in the normal way, by the IDA as it has gone on over the last ten years, will continue. I hope, if anything, it will intensify because the IDA may be perhaps pushed into making a bigger effort than ever, in view of the fact that some people say that the mid-western region is doomed now that the IDA have arrived on the scene.

In connection with the IDA I will refer to a statement made and repeated three or four time by Senator Howard about a report in a paper on 3 February, which attributed certain views to Mr. Michael Killeen, Managing Director of the IDA. That statement is entirely erroneous. Mr. Killeen did not say that. Mr. Killeen, whom I know very well, would not dream of saying anything of that kind. The Seanad can disregard this attribution to Mr. Killeen of views which he certainly did not hold and did not express.

Senator Howard and a number of other Senators spoke about the town in Shannon, and about the necessity of establishing some form of local administration there. That is an objective with which I and the Minister for the Environment have sympathy. I have spoken to him about it at some length. It cannot happen overnight, unfortunately, because the ramifications of local government seem to be considerable, but it will happen. If anyone wanted to talk about the downgrading of SFADCo, the only time that they ever will be downgraded is when they lose their town management function. Quite a number of their staff are involved in that. Only four of their staff are involved in major industrial promotion. That is 2 per cent. A considerably larger number than that are engaged in the running of the town. I sympathise with requests which have been made in the town itself, that it should evolve its own local government, and that in due time it should become part of County Clare and should come under the jurisdiction of the Clare County Council. That is the proper way for it to develop. That is the way it will develop but it may take some years to bring that about.

I have dealt with most of the criticisms made. I thank the Senators who spoke. I assure those who had misgivings or apprehensions that there is no basis for their misgivings. The mid-western region will make even greater progress in industrial terms and in other associated terms than it has done in the past. From a national point of view SFADCo is being given a specific objective in a most vital area. It is a company that will respond to that task extremely well. The benefit of their response will not simply be confined to two-and-a-half counties and a city, but will be nationwide. At present Ireland needs that kind of response and that kind of development. As a result of what we are now doing Ireland will get that kind of response and development.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill put through Committee, reported without amendment, received for final consideration and passed.