I was referring to the argument of Deputy Norton in connection with Store Street bus station. While condemning the site of that station, the Deputy did not tell us about its proximity to the only central railway station in Dublin. He did not tell us about its proximity to the docks and to sea travelling facilities. He did not tell us about its proximity to the various local bus termini in Dublin. The Deputy also said that when Córas Iompair Éireann embarked on this project it had no money to pay the rates or rent for its Kingsbridge premises. I do not know whether that is true or not. So far as I know, the rates were paid, whatever about the rent.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 50—Industry and Commerce (Resumed).
By selling the bus station.
Córas Iompair Éireann for years have been in that position. If my memory serves me, on the last day of the old Dáil, on the introduction of the Budget, the Minister mentioned that he probably would want £1,000,000 this year for Córas Iompair Éireann. Last year, I think, we passed £4,000,000. The whole idea at the time was to help them to get out of that position by capital expenditure that would reduce expenses and enable Córas Iompair Éireann to pay its way. Besides the Store Street bus station, there were several other proposals for capital expenditure turned down by the inter-Party Government. There was, for instance, the proposal for diesel engines, which Córas Iompair Éireann are now going to revert to. The last figure that I heard is that we will pay £10,000 each more for them than the original price. To my mind this whole opposition to the Store Street bus station was simply political. It shows that the matter was not considered in any sort of impartial way. Personally, I think Córas Iompair Éireann were very fortunate in being able to get a central site in Dublin, such as Store Street, without having to pay enormous sums in compensation for demolition of premises. The idea of erecting the big building was to provide for centralisation of all the staffs, to reduce expenses in that way and, either by sale or letting of their existing premises, to offset the cost. I have been very reliably informed that the bus station, about the capital cost of which we have heard so much, taking the estimate as being under the current figures, could easily have produced, by letting, over £70,000 a year. I do not think that anybody could say that that was an investment that should be sneezed at, that we should hear so much about. As I said, I do not think that anyone who opposed it could have gone into the matter in any impartial way.
I hope that in another few months the bus station will be in operation. I hope it will end all this criticism that we have been hearing. At least it will do this—it will provide accommodation for the travelling public that they have badly needed for years and which the late Government never lifted a finger to provide.
The time being short, I want to refer to three specific matters. I want to underline most urgently what Deputy Norton has said about the Industrial Development Authority.
I agree with Deputy Norton in his view that that authority might, with perfect propriety, be relieved of the duties to which he referred of dealing with quotas and the like and have its attention directed exclusively to creating new industries and to co-ordinating the disorganised attempts of people who require certain products and of those who would be in a position to supply them were the want and the potentiality of production brought together.
I want to make this point to the House, and I think it is a point of substance: human nature being what it is, it is not always easy for prominent businessmen who have been trenchantly and energetically opposed to the Minister for Industry and Commerce for the time being to approach him with their respective political backgrounds and discuss in full frankness the difficulties in respect of the desires they have to promote some particular industrial enterprise that may redound greatly to the advantage of the country. That difficuly does not arise at all where you are dealing with a body like the Industrial Development Authority which, of its nature, has no politics.
Let me illustrate that by a particular case in my own experience. About 18 months or two years ago I, as Minister for Agriculture then, notified Burnhouse Brothers that I would not continue to license the export of fallen animals in this country for conversion into meat meal in Northern Ireland unless Messrs. Burnhouse gave me satisfactory proof of their intention to establish a processing plant here to convert this matter into meat meal and its by-products and that, if they were prepared to do that, I would be prepared to continue to give them ad interim licences while their factory was a-building. They did give me such an undertaking but then the difficulty arose that, under the Control of Manufactures Act, it was necessary that there should be associated with them certain Irish interests.
I felt that there was a sort of deadlock which, perhaps, Burnhouse Brothers wanted because they preferred to continue exporting their material and were in a position to say: "What can we do about it?" I referred the matter to the Industrial Development Authority and told them that I desired to see this industry instituted here and gave them the background of the story. I do not deny that within six months the Industrial Development Authority came up with a proposal. I gulped a little when I discovered that the three Irish directors were Deputy James Ryan, Senator Hearne in the Seanad and Senator Summerfield, and it occurred to me "Begob, my little brainwave seems to have fructified in rather odd quarters." But, on reflection, I was obliged to say to myself: "Am I not blessed in having the Industrial Development Authority because the likelihood of these three men, Senator Hearne, Deputy Dr. Ryan and Senator Summerfield coming in either to me or Deputy O'Higgins to sit down and discuss a very complicated business enterprise ab initio was not high. It would be an embarrassment to them and to me but they could go into the Industrial Development Authority and discuss the whole business. In fact, the Industrial Development Authority went to them because they were looking for suitable entrepreneurs who could represent Irish interests with this foreign firm, to set up a satisfactory business.
The net result was admirable and they have arranged to erect in Ballinasloe a large plant to deal with fallen cattle and to produce, not only meat meal, but divers other by-products which would never have been produced in this country but for the fact that the Industrial Development Authority was able to come between Burnhouse Brothers, who really did not want to do anything but to export the raw material, and three, as it so happened, prominent members of the Fianna Fáil Party, but who, in this case, happen to be the people best suited to meet the industrial need that existed. The likelihood of any person deeply imbued in politics being able to effect that juncture is far less than if you have a quasi-independent body who has no cognisance of and who does not care what any man's politics are, but whose primary concern is to get the finance when finance is required, to get the know-how, when know-how is required and to get raw material when raw material is required.
Let me give another instance where I started a scheme in order to try to promote an industry in the West. Sea rods were being collected on the West coast at Kilkerrin under the auspices of the Department of Gaeltacht services. I had no means of knowing what was the best means of processing this material, but I felt that if a Scottish firm thought it worth their while to pick this material at Kilkerrin and ship it to Glasgow something must have been going on in Glasgow. I laid the whole problem before the Industrial Development Authority. I did not know what kind of yarn, whether nylon or otherwise, they were making out of the material, but I felt that whatever it was it would be as easy for us to make the yarn in Kilkerrin and ship it as it would be for the Scottish firm to make the yarn in Glasgow. Fianna Fáil Deputies jeered at me about making nylons. The I.D.A. reported that it was alginate yarn and was a valuable product. The market for it is a highly specialised market, which would be very valuable if we could break into it. I think it was a good thing that the Minister for Agriculture had a body such as the I.D.A. to which he could bring a problem of that kind. He presented them with all his difficulties and asked them to try and riddle them out. They said: "Pile them in and we will try to sort them out," and they did.
There was another case in connection with what was reported to be a valuable deposit of china clay at Portnacloy in North-West Mayo. I had no means, and there was no Department of State which had any means, of determining whether there was a deposit of china clay there or not. The Geological Office had some rumour of such a deposit.
Samples were sent to America years ago.
I am not saying for a moment that the Geological Office said that there was a deposit there. They had not the staff or the equipment to test it. Within four weeks of bringing the problem to the notice of the I.D.A., a distinguished body of international authorities on china clay called to Portnacloy with Doctor Flood from the Irish Industrial Research Station. They went over the area and got samples. A survey was made and everything conceivable was done. The report indicated that what was thought to be china clay was not china clay.
Lastly, a question arose about the exploitation of mineral in Connemara —molybdenum. One of the difficulties of politics is that if you embark on ten enterprises and bring home only three successes, politics being what politics are, you expose yourself to a barrage of ridicule and insult. I also asked the I.D.A. to investigate that case. The best mining engineers in the world went down to Roundstone. I do not know whether the Minister for Agriculture has yet got their report. There is another deposit at Maam which I know the I.D.A. is discussing with competent bodies. We found that there was no sulphur to be had in the world, one result being that the sugar company was in danger of closing down. Fortunately, we got a small quantity of sulphur from the U.S.A. Steps were taken, in consultation with others, to extract sulphuric acid from a deposit in the Maam area. When I tried to get a factory started in Ballinasloe it transpired that a Fianna Fáil Deputy and two Fianna Fáil Senators desired to be associated with it. I think it is a good idea to have an independent body for promoting industry and for following up the possibilities of seeking out the right people.
I agree entirely with Deputy Norton that, I think, it is a mistake to delegate to such a body a number of ordinary duties in connection with licences and quotas which should be the ordinary day-to-day operations of the Department of Industry and Commerce. A Department of State cannot do work in connection with the promotion of industry so long as the Department of Finance is there, although I understand the Tánaiste is a very formidable challenge to it in these matters.
The next thing I want to say it that this country is threatened with inflation of a kind in which there is too much money circulating which can be rapidly employed by those who hold it in the purchase of consumer goods. In certain countries that development evokes the symptom of a rapid rise in prices, as a result of surplus money chasing a stable quantity of goods, but that is not the way inflation first shows itself in our economy. The way in which it shows itself first in our economy is a steep rise in our imports of consumer goods, financed by our accumulated sterling balances abroad.
For the past six or nine months we have deliberately, as a policy, thrown the balance of trade out of balance. A Government decision was taken six or nine months ago that we must stockpile in this country on a scale suitable to our requirements and corresponding to stockpiling going on elsewhere, if we were not to run into absolute shortage. There is no doubt that, for the past few months, stockpiling has gone on a pretty heroic scale and I think we were right to do that; but when that stockpiling operation is over, the balance of trade must return to something like normal, and of course we have to bear in mind that the invisible items must be taken account of.
That feature of our economy is one of the great safety valves against the danger of inflation, because, I suggest to the Minister, if the inflationary pressure upon us becomes too strong, one admirable check which is now at his disposal and at the disposal of the Minister for Finance is the removal of quotas, of all quantitative restrictions on imports and the imposition of revenue tariffs on such categories of goods as may be deemed to be non-essential. If they then come in, owing to excess purchasing power in the hands of the people which the people are resolved to spend on fripperies, a considerable tithe of all the expenditure on non-essentials will go to the Exchequer, and if the height of the import price, plus the revenue tariff, exceeds their means, they suffer no hardship by foregoing the purchases because the revenue tariff applies only to non-essential imports.
I want to give a warning to agricultural Deputies on every side of this House. It is natural that there should be a certain fundamental antipathy between the economic interests represented by Deputy Lemass, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, and those represented by Deputy Walsh, the Minister for Agriculture. Deputy O'Higgins was explaining how certain price orders had been held over while he was Minister, notably one relating to hides and wool. I most cordially agree with him that he and I, and his predecessor, Deputy Morrissey, had a reasonable day-to-day agreement that, where price orders affected interests which both of us felt we had a duty to defend, the Minister for Industry and Commerce heard the agricultural point of view and took it into consideration before making a final decision in the sphere of industrial economics as to any price control Order or the like. Frequently, I did not get my way and, frequently, I was overborne. Sometimes we had to go to the Government. I held my point of view and the Minister held his, that it was necessary, and sometimes our differences had to be carried to the Government to be resolved. Sometimes I got my way, and sometimes he got his. We had to take the decision of our colleagues as to what, in all the circumstances, was in the best interests of the nation, but, hopping and trotting, the pair of us were about evenly matched to fight our respective corners, and, in the counsel of our colleagues, to thresh out an equitable decision in relation to the various interests represented. Can you picture Deputy Walsh squaring off to Deputy Lemass? Talk of Sugar Ray Robinson!
Look what happened to him.
All I am saying is that when Sugar Ray Robinson gets into operation, his rival will have to have a Turpin in reserve, and I am inviting the agricultural Deputies on all sides of the House to constitute themselves into a joint Turpin to challenge Sugar Ray when he gets cracking on the relative importance of the interests of agriculture and industry.
I know what is going to happen. I know that when I went into the Department of Agriculture three years ago the position was that I could not post a letter out of that Department without the prior sanction of the Department of Industry and Commerce, until eventually I gave instructions: "Let no transaction that transpires in this office be mentioned, discussed or notified to Kildare Street, and if anybody from Industry and Commerce asks anything, tell them you will not tell them." When I got back on to solid ground where I could call my soul my own, we proceeded to establish a normal relationship between the two Departments, but when I went into the office it was substantially run by the Department of Industry and Commerce. You could not blow your nose in it without getting a letter of inquiry.
I remeber one historic occasion. I got a letter to inquire how I dared to establish any contact at all with the Institute of Higher Studies in regard to meteorological matters, as it had apparently escaped my notice that matters of meteorology were the province of the Department of Industry and Commerce. I invite the Minister to read my rejoinder to that communication and to frame it and hang it up in his office. I hope he will get many such, if he ever resumes that type of correspondence with the Department of Agriculture, but, looking at my successor, my heart sinks.
I bespeak from every side of the House the constitution of a composite Randolph Turpin to get into the ring with the very formidable warrior who is Minister for Industry and Commerce and Tánaiste at the same time. I am slowly coming to the conclusion that Deputy Tom Walsh is the nominee of the Tánaiste as Minister for Agriculture. I thought at first he was Deputy Aiken's nominee and that Deputy Aiken was going to bare his teeth at "Sugar" Ray Robinson.
I do not think that arises on this Estimate.
What does not arise?
The matter to which the Deputy is referring does not arise on the Estimate.
We were discussing the control of the price of hides, of feeding stuffs and of artificial fertilisers, and the ex-Minister for Industry and Commerce was explaining the reason why certain orders he left for his successor to handle were left over and pointing out that conflicting interests arose.
I am trying to explain to the House that, by its very nature, conflicting viewpoints are going to arise perennially between the industrial interests and the agricultural interests. The Minister for Industry and Commerce is, by nature, an overbearing man and he knows what he wants. I wish I could say the same for the Minister for Agriculture. I think we will have to prop the other fellow up.
You will act as trainer.
I know that Deputy Norton is enthusiastic on this subject of converting electricity into turf on bog. Electricity is the raw material of industry in this country, in the last analysis. Is it industry we are concerned to promote or is it our primary interest to burn turf? It seems to me to be the acme of madness to eschew cheap power in order to have the satisfaction of burning turf costing the equivalent of £9 a ton of coal. I admit that, if we have an abundance of power to provide all the industrial and essential services we must continue to maintain, we could consider generating a fringe surplus from turf, without too scrupulous a regard to the strict economics of such an operation. But surely we ought not to carry on with the daft business of starving industrial development of power without which the development cannot take place, by refusing to supplement existing bulk supplies with oil-driven plant. I think that is the most readily accessible fuel of the day—power plant which would boost up the total power available to something approximating to current demand. Let local enterprises, such as that envisaged at Portarlington and Ballycloy, be pressed forward if they can be brought within the requirements of some marginal demand; but power ought not to be made the servant of local parish pump politics. Surely if we mean business in regard to industry, we should seek the cheapest source of power, just as if we mean business in agriculture we should seek the cheapest source of raw material.
These are considerations which I think the Minister might advantageously excogitate. In regard to the idea concerning power, I do not expect him sympathetically to consider representations I have made in respect of the rights of agriculture as opposed to industry. Those are the issues, which are made not in the shape of a request but a warning, that even if he has put someone in Agriculture on whom he hopes to be able to walk without let or hindrance, he will find that, even if he is succeeding in tramping him into the dust, there will be some survivors who may encompass his downfall if he tries to make agriculture the handmaid of industry or the footstool of industry as it used to be before he went out of office.
As this debate is somewhat curtailed and the time available this evening is limited, I want to deal with only one particular matter and the remainder may remain over until next week. In reply to a parliamentary question to-day, the Minister gave the House information concerning the future allocation of coal for the remaining two quarters of the year and indicated that, on the assumption that the supplies would not exceed double the quantities supplied for the first half of the year, the total quantity available would be 1,140,000 tons, that is, two-thirds of the minimum quantity guaranteed under the 1948 trade agreement.
As I understand the coal supply position, in addition to that, under arrangements which have been made, it is proposed to purchase a total of 500,000 tons of American coal with, I think, from recollection, 100,000 tons already purchased. It therefore looks as if the total quantity of coal available this year from all sources would reach about 1,700,000 or 1,800,000 tons. The supplies available last year amounted to just short of 2,000,000 tons and on the present user of coal that quantity is required. This brings into the forefront a much larger question, leaving aside the obvious breach of the 1948 trade agreement—and there is provision in that agreement for a revision of it if either party to it finds it inequitable to comply with the terms of it. It raises the whole question of the supply of fuel and consequently the supply of power for various needs. That inevitably brings into discussion the programme of the Electricity Supply Board generating capacity.
In his opening statement to-day, the Minister, in dealing with almost all matters which he spoke about, was— despite the remarks of Deputy Dillon —extraordinarily mild. In fact, the mild approach of the Government since they assumed office leads me to believe that there is some hidden purpose in it. They are approaching the Dáil, maybe to get the Estimates through quickly, in an extraordinarily easy manner. It may be that because they are implementing our Estimates they decided that that was a wise approach. However, it is somewhat unreal to discuss grave matters of policy without at times becoming controversial. While I do not think there is any real controversy about the Electricity Supply Board generating programme or the fuel programme, we want to get some clarity on the position. The programme envisages four stations to which the Minister has referred and one or two smaller stations. He referred to the four major ones which he says were approved in 1946 and some of them started in 1947. These were two hydro stations and two turf-burning stations. Nobody need be concerned about the hydro stations, as it is obvious that where water power is available it should be used. The only criticism I would offer in that connection is that I have never got a satisfactory answer as to why the Erne scheme was not started earlier. Since the Electricity Supply Board was established and since current became available in 1930, I think that with the exception of one or two years the demand has always outstripped the supply. My recollection is that only on one or two occasions, sometime about 1933 or 1934, was the supply equal to the demand. Since the war, and even immediately before the war, demand has exceeded supply each year and the position is being reached that, with the curtailment of other fuels in the last couple of year and especially in view of the bad winter last year and the bad spring earlier this year, the demand has far exceeded the supply available and, consequently, rationing over a protracted period has been necessary. Everybody recognises that there was no possibility of developing any hydro-schemes or any other generating stations during the war years, but I have never got a satisfactory answer as to why, faced with a position in which, long before the war, there was a steadily growing demand for electricity, the Electricity Supply Board and the Government of the day failed to develop increased generating capacity as rapidly as it was obviously required.
There were two stations started before the war, Portarlington and the Liffey.
The Liffey is a very small station. I understand that the Liffey was originally considered more as a water supply than as an electricity station—Portarlington may have been started—it was a hydro scheme.
I now come to the question of the turf burning or the hard fuel stations. Everybody in this country is anxious to see our own resources developed and see the country made independent of outside fuel supplies. I want to say this in connection with the use of turf —sentiment is no substitue for facts and enthusiasm in the production of turf as a fuel for the turf burning stations is no substitute for efficiency. Neither of these observations is in any way a condemnation of Bord na Móna. As far as the conditions permit, Bord na Móna has been efficient, but Deputies should recognise that in order to burn fuel economically and to have it available when required, suitable weather conditions must be experienced during the late spring and early summer. I went very carefully into the generating programme of the Electricity Supply Board, and I had a number of discussions with representatives of the board and with representatives of Bord na Móna, when I had some responsibility in the Department of Industry and Commerce. I was never entirely satisfied that it was possible, on the results already available, to burn turf economically with an assured supply. It is quite possible. Turf is a very satisfactory fuel to burn in the turf generating station, but I understand that the turf available must have a water content of not more than 30 per cent. Due to the particularly bad season last year, I think it was never less than 35 per cent. and, on some occasions, it was much higher, so high that at least on one occasion the turf put out the fire in the Portarlington station. That, I know, engaged the attention of the teachnical officers in Bord na Móna and consideration was being given to the possibility of using turf other than dried sod turf. It is much easier to make available turf in another form, but the type of machinery for using that turf and the plant available is different from that which is used in the burning of sod turf. I must say that, on the results that were available, it did not seem that Bord na Móna had established that it could be done satisfactorily, and that the results would justify the Electricity Supply Board or the Government embarking upon the erection of a station other than one to burn sod turf.
I must direct the attention of the Government and the House to the general fuel situation. Having regard to the present supply of fuel in Europe, it is quite certain that in a number of years hence this country will not be able to get adequate supplies of coal and that we must use, as we should use, turf as a fuel. The fact that we will require turf for domestic and industrial purposes makes it obvious that the supply of turf which will be required is considerably in excess of anything that was required in the past, with the possible exception of the emergency years. The experience of Bord na Móna and the Electricity Supply Board has been that adequate supplies of turf to meet the demands of the turf generating stations and those of domestic and industrial users are unlikely if the full demand of the turf generating stations is to be met. That fact, coupled with the fact that the moisture content cannot be guaranteed at a sufficiently low level means, I think, that this whole question of turf-fired generating stations should be examined. I believe that the direction of Board na Móna and its technical advisers is up to standard, but the company and its technical advisers cannot get over the weather situation, or as far as one can gather develop to a sufficiently satisfactory state an alternative method of using turf.
I know that some method of using turf other than in a sod form has been tried in Germany and Russia but everybody knows that the type of turf available there is different to that which is available here, and while the dry sod turf burns very satisfactorily here in the turf burning station, it is quite obvious that there is no guarantee of adequate supplies of turf being available to burn in these stations in the future. Certainly, if the supply of coal from Britain and other European countries does not increase in sufficient quantities to make more coal available for domestic and industrial use, I believe that the Minister and the Government should consider what steps can be taken, in conjunction with the Electricity Supply Board, to develop still further hydro-electric schemes. I know that the main rivers have already either been harnessed or that plans are in train for harnessing those that are suitable.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.