The Bill provides for a scheme which will be funded by employers to help maintain employment in the textile, clothing, footwear and leather industries. Employers will fund the scheme on the basis of a contribution of 0.2 per cent of their payroll for the contribution year running from 6 April 1981. The amount collected will be paid into an FUE/CII account, the State retaining a sum in respect of tax. The total amount involved is estimated at £6.5 million net of tax. The scheme will provide for a payment of £5 per person employed per week in the eligible industries, the numbers involved running to over 25,000 in about 370 firms. It will be temporary, lasting one year.
The scheme represents a response by employers as a whole to the need to help certain sensitive industries in the present temporary period of recession. Payment of the contribution will not be an enforceable liability. The FUE/CII will be responsible for the administration of the scheme and will issue payments to eligible industries.
I believe that what is being presented to Senators in this Bill is a positive and praiseworthy response by employers as a whole to particular problems being encountered by firms in the clothing, textiles, footwear and leather industries. These industries are basically viable, many of them having been restructured in recent years, but require temporary assistance, if further redundancies are to be avoided. There already exists a wide range of structural assistance to industry, including the industries in question in this Bill. This includes: IDA grants for fixed asset investment in new undertakings, the expansion of existing ones and re-equipment; research and development grants; and loan guarantees and interest subsidies on funds borrowed to finance fixed assets.
The ICC also provide a range of loan facilities for industry. Under the second national understanding, the Government are committed to an intensification of services to improve the structural capacity of existing firms to compete in changing market conditions. The objective of all of these provisions is to provide for the continued strengthening of our industrial base, so that industry can become more competitive and thus help create sustained employment opportunities.
Senators will also be aware that a Sectoral Development Committee representing employers, unions and the Government have recently been established and one of their tasks is to evaluate sectors which are experiencing particular difficulties at present in trying to expand, or maintain output, or to maintain employment. I believe that this evaluation will help in developing policies for the longer-term viability of many of our vulnerable industries.
This employers' scheme — representing a solidarity approach on their part to the problems of these industries — will complement the Government's efforts to encourage industrial expansion and to maintain employment. I commend the Bill to the House.