Undeveloped Areas Bill, 1951—Fourth and Fifth Stages.

Mr. Sweetman

May I take it the Minister is not introducing any official amendment?

Mr. Dillon

I move:—

In page 2, line 13, to add the words:—

"and where the undertaking is in existence at the passing of the Act assistance provided for it, by the board, shall not be by way of grant, but in lieu thereof, by way of loan, repayable in annual instalments without interest over such period of years and in such annual instalments as the board with the consent of the Minister, shall prescribe".

The reason that it has been necessary to give the House such short notice of this amendment is that the need for this amendment arises from the adoption by the House of the amendment moved by the Minister on the Committee Stage to Section 2 which added to that section the words "industrial undertaking includes an undertaking in existence at the passing of this Act." As the Bill came before us originally, as I understood the Government case, it was to provide grants for the creation of new industries in those parts of the country where it was unreasonable to anticipate that persons dominated by economic consideration could reasonably be expected to establish there a new enterprise. That was interpreted by certain Deputies of the House as an indication that the Minister meant to promote the establishment of these industries in the Gaeltacht. Yesterday the Minister for Industry and Commerce told Deputy Dr. Browne that not one penny under this Bill was to be expended in the five or six parishes that constitute the Fíor-Ghaeltacht, and they must be provided for from some other source. The Parliamentary Secretary was very angry with me when I suggested to him at the Second Stage of this Bill that that was the case, that the Gaeltacht was being sold down the drain. Now we have it that this Bill is designed to promote industry in Sligo, Roscommon, Mayo, Clare and Kerry.

Here again the case could be made that even though those areas were relatively accessible if you are building a new factory it was highly probable if economics only were present to your mind that you would opt for the vicinity of Cork or Dublin in preference to one of those western counties. But then a new principle was, I readily acknowledge, with reluctance accepted by the Minister for Industry and Commerce at the request of Deputies on all sides of the House who made such representations, I understand, on the Second Stage—I did not hear them but the Minister, of course, did—and rather against his own better judgment he determined to extend the benefit of the Bill to an undertaking in existence at the passing of the Act.

I do not think the House realises the implications of that position. The Fíor-Ghaeltacht gets nothing under this Bill. That part of the country which lies outside the congested areas gets nothing under this Bill. But picture the situation if the Minister for Industry and Commerce adheres to the decision which he expressed on the Second Stage of the Bill that the only form of assistance he is prepared to give is by way of grant to the intending entrepreneur. Picture the situation which will thereupon arise in the congested areas in the light of the amendment. You would have a parish in the County Mayo in which there was a small mill operated, from the point of view of James Rank, as a miscroscopic unit and the property of a poor man. But it is not from that angle that man is habitually regarded.

Picture the position of that man from the standpoint of 10-acre farmers, who bring him in a bag of oats to grind for them. From their point of view he is the strongest man in the parish. He comes to the Minister with perfect propriety and says: "My own mill is pretty near the end of its tether. It will probably see me out, if I let it grind itself out, but I could undertake to grind other cereals, I could do another useful job by setting up a little compound feed establishment here if I had the capital to re-equip the mill, to buy the mixing machinery and put up a little building. I would like to get a grant of £6,000, and I will undertake to the board that I will employ permanently not less than four men in addition to whoever is working with me already." That might be a very attractive proposition from the point of view of the development of employment in that area. Suppose the board decided to give that man £6,000, can Deputies imagine the feeling of a ten-acre farmer whose Poor Law Valuation is £7, and who all his life has looked on the mill owner as a prosperous and strong man, when he sees him getting a free grant of £6,000? Will any Deputy think it unfair if this neighbouring farmer is stirred by envy and indignation and if he says: "My gracious me, if that man is entitled to get £6,000 as a present what am I entitled to get?"

That is not the worst. Take, for instance, a relatively substantial firm operating in Galway, Sligo or Ballina, I am thinking of one firm which, unhappily, has met with some drawbacks, which, I hope, it will rapidly overcome. I am referring to Hygeia, Limited, Galway. They set up a chemical factory in Galway and they did extremely well. They produced admirably a number of modern, selective weed-killers. The Minister will remember that I mentioned that one of the purposes to be served by this Bill could be the establishment of the manufacture of antibiotics, lest we would be left without them in time of emergency. I can well imagine Foras Tionscal saying: "We will manufacture antibiotics here if you give us the choice of where to put the plant. We will let you do it, because we want the thing manufactured. You could extend your premises and give additional employment in this highly specialised business. The bulk of the finished product is so small that whether you are a distance from the centres of consumption or not does not matter."

They will reply: "We understand the position. We are in this business. We do not intend to ask for a grant or any charity from the public purse for the purpose of operating this industry. While we appreciate, however, that that is being made to us, we do not want to proceed along those lines. Frankly, we have no capital. You had better go and get somebody else—somebody with capital to throw about." The Ministers hears an eminently suitable firm saying that they do not choose to accept a grant from the Exchequer.

Now comes the third question. A relatively large firm has been conducting an old substantial family business in one of the towns we have in mind here. That enterprise may be operated as a family concern. They have never achieved the highest point of industrial efficiency, simply because they did not want to. They kept the old chaps who grew old in their employment rambling around the job and drawing their wages. From many aspects, you would say that their business was not run on the very highest pitch of efficiency because it was run more as a social institution. There are many such businesses in the West, and I think they have great merit. If it is put up to them that their business is one which is peculiarly susceptible to adaptation and that if they build a wing on to it they could most conveniently add a new process and give extra employment, they would say: "If that is what you want us to do we will do it, but it means an investment of £12,000 in buildings, machinery and so forth. This is an old family business and we desire to hold on to it. It is out of the question for us to put up £12,000 but we would be able to advance £2,000." The board says: "That is a fair contribution from these people and we will give them a grant of £10,000."

I beg Deputies to consider the justifiable scandal which is thereby given to reasonable people. In that small town that family business and its proprietor have been looked upon as the rich people of the area. Of course, from the point of view of Dublin they are not rich or considerable, and they are ranked economically as shaky. From the point of view of their neighbour they are rich people. Their neighbours behold the richest man they have ever seen applying to the Government for, and receiving, a grant—a free grant—of £10,000 for the apparent purpose of doubling the size of the business out of which he has already made a very comfortable income, as have his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather before him. I feel that if Dáil Éireann did this that the people would be shocked, and not only that, but that they would begin to suspect our sanity.

I think the Minister was probably right in meeting the requests made to him to bring within the scope of the Bill established industries, and to envisage the possibility of providing extra employment by expanding that rather than by putting in a completely revolutionary new trend. There is nothing wrong in my statement, and there is nothing shocking in saying to any one of the persons in the various businesses I have described: "We are not going to give you any free grant at all, but if you require £12,000 to make the necessary addition to carry on this operation, you can have it on interest free loan, to be repaid out of profits; it would be folly to start it at all unless you can make it pay." The Minister has emphasised that his whole purpose is to make one initial contribution to start the project under way, and that, thereafter, it must stand on its own feet. That is the very basis of his whole plan. Therefore, it should be made known to the relatively rich enterpreneur that there is no free grant. It is most salutary to be able to say to neighbours who would entertain justifiable envy if they thought he was getting a grant, that there was no question of offering a grant, and that all that was happening was that the capital to extend was being provided to this man, so that he does not start out with a load of inescapable interest payments hanging around his neck.

Now what brings down an enterprise in these rural areas is that having put £12,000 into it, you start out at once with the first £720 you earn going down the sink and after you have paid £720 every year in interest, you owe just as much, after 20 years of paying interest, as you owed the first day. What we say to this man is: "If you are going to embark on this venture, nobody is going to jump on your neck in the first year if you pay only £10 or £50 but whatever your annual contribution is in the initial stages, it is a reduction of the sum due. If the thing turns out well, and you make a good profit out of it at an early stage, then let the matter be reviewed and let the annual instalments be £200 or £300 but whether it is £5 or £1,000 you are paying on the debt, every £1 you pay is reducing your liability. At the end of the term agreed you will have the business and no debt, and no one will have it to say that you had out of the Exchequer one penny piece by way of a free gift or that you had out of anybody one farthing that you did not earn." That leaves us in the position that we can say to everybody else: "If you are prepared to do as much in a similar enterprise, get to it and we shall all be delighted." I understand the Minister's intention in putting in this amendment yesterday but I think you would be in grave danger of doing very real and great damage, if you allow the House to go forward on the basis of giving grants to establish an enterprise. I would urge on him that that decision should be reconsidered and that the procedure which I here submit be adopted in its stead.

I am not going to go further into the incalculable value to the country of the experiment of seeing how interest-free money might fructify in the hands of free enterprise. I think that that might be a revelation to the world, were it but tried. I think interest has always strangled the greater part of the efforts of mankind to bring human wants, wealth, manpower and raw materials together into fruitful collaboration. Here are conditions in which we may rightly justify the suspension of that accursed infliction on human endeavour for the last seven centuries. If it were only for that reason, I would ask the Minister to reconsider this matter, not with much hope, but I cannot but believe that the Minister must agree with me that the procedure of giving grants to establish relatively prosperous persons in industry would be quite a shocking development, were those grants, in fact, to operate to increase the size of their already not inconsiderable property, looked at from the viewpoint of their neighbours. I am certain the adoption of this amendment would make the Bill function more satisfactorily in the dwindling remnant of the congested areas where it is now to operate.

I await at some later stage of our discussion on this Bill for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture to tell us what has become of the benefits he so confidently prophesied for the Gaeltacht under this Bill. Is he still angry with me for telling him on the Second Stage of the Bill that he was being taken for a ride and that, like the young lady of Riga, who went for a ride on a tiger, he would return from the ride with the Parliamentary Secretary inside and a smile on the face of the tiger?

Mr. Bartley

My anger has not increased nor has my confidence been decreased.

General Mulcahy

Deputy Dillon put his finger on a very big problem in connection with this Bill in relation to the humanity which exists already in the Bill, from the point of view of geography. Section 3 provides that the areas to which the Bill applies are the congested areas and it indicates seven whole counties that can be regarded as counties which will benefit under the Bill. I am quite sure that it would outrage all of us, and outrage the spirit of the Bill, if it were applied to certain areas within any of these counties because in most of these seven counties you will find certain areas that are quite as prosperous, if not more so, than many places in counties not mentioned there at all. I think it is reasonable to expect that the provisions of the Bill will not be applied to the rich spots in these counties.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister announced yesterday that these were the only parts to which it will be applied.

Mr. Lemass

Not quite.

General Mulcahy

I must say, if that is so, I should be glad to hear the point discussed further, and it was worth while putting down the amendment in order to discuss it. It certainly would be news to me if it were stated that industries were to be established under this Bill in certain spots of the seven counties mentioned here, which are very well able to look after themselves, both from the point of view of industry or the point of view of catering for the employable population living there. As I understand Deputy Dillon's amendment, he looks at the humanity of these seven districts as if they were equally liable to benefit under it. I do not regard the geographical areas expressed in the form of these seven counties as being areas, each part of which is equally worthy of having the benefits of this Bill applied to them. I take it this Bill is applicable to areas which have a definite economic problem arising out of the condition of these areas and that they are not definable in terms of counties.

If my impression is correct, the amendment which Deputy Dillon proposes seeks to try to do a job in relation to the humanity of these areas that it has been found impossible to do by legislative definition of geographical areas. But, if the amendment was accepted, then I would be greatly disappointed in respect of what I hoped might happen under Sections 6 and 7. Section 6 proposes that "the board may make grants for the purpose of providing machinery and equipment, provided the board is satisfied that the undertaking would be likely to provide or maintain employment in such area" When I found the word "maintain" there, I had my mind directed to small industries which have existed for a long time, very often struggling with ups and downs, in some of the Gaeltacht areas and which the Gaeltacht Services organisation assisted by marketing some of their wares. I thought it was to be expected that under this Bill in some of these cases it would be possible by way of grant to strengthen the foundation upon which these industries rested so that the basis could be made more secure and that this Bill might be of use to strengthen the permanent hope of keeping them there and extending them.

Mr. Dillon

Did not the Minister say yesterday that he wished categorically to make it clear that not one penny would be spent in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht under this Bill? That is in this morning's papers.

General Mulcahy

Could we hear the Minister on that?

Mr. Lemass

I do not want to say yes or no to that.

Mr. Dillon

I will get the Irish Press.

General Mulcahy

I am speaking of my hopes, as I read the Bill originally, and of the fact that such slender foundations as there might have been for any such hope on my part would be completely blighted and blasted if the Minister were to be expressly prevented from doing that by any inclusion in this Bill of a provision that no existing industry of any kind in the Irish-speaking districts had any chance of being assisted because it had struggled to its feet on its own initiative. Therefore, one of the main things for which I welcomed the Bill in connection with Section 6 would be cut out of the Bill. Section 7 states that "the board may make grants, on such terms as they think proper, for the training, either in the State or elsewhere, of workers in skilled processes of an industrial undertaking in an undeveloped area if the board are satisfied that the undertaking would be likely to provide or maintain employment in such area." I contemplated also that it would be possible under Section 7 for the board to make a grant to an existing industry in the Gaeltacht which would enable it to send some of its workers away to get training in their particular class of work so as to improve their technique and widen their horizon generally with regard to the possibility of developing that industry. That section would provide that, for the purpose of sending such a worker for training, an advance could be made and the grant would not exceed the actual amount of the wages paid by the undertaking to workers during their period of training. Under Section 6, the grant would not exceed more than half of the cost of the machinery or equipment and the industry would have to provide the other half of the cost.

The inclusion of an amendment like that would definitely secure that no existing industry in the Gaeltacht could get assistance by way of grant to a maximum of 50 per cent. of the expenditure and that none of them could be assisted under this Bill to send their workers away for training by means of a grant. If that is passed, it would prevent that. If the Minister has made the suggestion to which Deputy Dillon referred, that also would make it impossible to hope for anything for them.

Mr. Dillon

Before the Deputy concludes, will he consider my amendment?

Mr. Cogan

Into what particular section of the Bill does this amendment come?

Mr. Dillon

Section 2.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy should read the amendment. It is put into the definition section.

Oh, good God.

Mr. Cogan

——for a number of years——

Mr. Dillon

I must hasten to my spiritual director. That is the heaviest blow I have got for a long time.

Mr. Davin

The Minister ought to read the Bill himself. Take, the board, if you like. The board will have to be given some sense of direction when it is set up. I want to know where exactly we stand. Is what I say true or untrue? Are we to interpret the Minister's statement as being a declaration that, inside the Fíor-Ghaeltacht the warrant of this Bill will not run? I cannot read anything else into it—that no person or group of persons within the Fíor-Ghaeltacht can apply for and obtain the advantages and benefits which are set out in this measure. If that is the position, then I think this Bill ought not to be passed by the House as it now stands. It is not the Bill that we thought it was when we were asked to give it a Second Reading. There are other Deputies who have a bigger personal responsibility in regard to this than I have, the Deputies representing the areas concerned. I am just giving the House my view of the position as it now emerges from the statement made by the Minister. If the Minister can controvert that I will be very pleased indeed.

I am satisfied that the State will see that not alone will industries be provided but that they are going to go further in relation to the Gaeltacht and that the industries that will be provided there will be as suitable as possible. Does Deputy Mulcahy suggest that the ordinary industrialist who would establish a line in any area of the Gaeltacht, let us take for argument sake, Inishmaan, which is 1 per cent. Fíor-Ghaeltacht, would be able to secure accommodation for a rising population in such a place. Why, they would not have standing room there after a generation.

Mr. Rooney

They could go to Birmingham.

Mr. Bartley

They have been going to Birmingham and to America and Australia. They have emigrated to these places and have come back in 40 years after and have been able to speak their native tongue as good as when they left Ireland. Does the Deputy suggest that if they go in to Galway City they are going to lose the language? This Bill is designed to establish industries in certain regions of the West coast that will minister to the needs of the migrating section of the Gaeltacht. If I had my choice and if I had the power to save the Gaeltacht the solution would be quite obvious. Take the whole entire Gaeltacht and place it in the middle of Ireland where the people can live under good agreeable conditions. That would be the best way of solving the problem but it is not possible. We have done that to some extent and the people have neither lost the language nor deteriorated in any other way. An instance of this is the Rathcarna Gaeltacht in County Meath. I spoke to a number of County Meath people who have learned the language from the incomers from the Gaeltacht. I would recommend to Deputy Giles that he should follow the example of some of the people in County Meath and come in here and deliver Gaelic speeches.

I am satisfied that the Gaeltacht is going to get very special consideration as a result of the Minister's statement. Those who had doubts on this point simply because the Gaeltacht was not specifically mentioned can put their minds at ease. I have read a memorandum from Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge and I understand fully the apprehension that induced them to mention this matter. If we are to save the Gaeltacht and to preserve it as a well from which the rest of us are to acquire a fluent knowledge of the language, then the plans, advice and suggestions contained in that memorandum should be carried out in so far as it is possible to do it.

The people who think this Bill is going to do damage to the Gaeltacht do not understand what is going to be done. We see boys and girls going to the far corners of the earth every year. There has been absolutely no concern about their loss to the language or otherwise. As a result of the industries established under this Bill they will not have to cross the Shannon and yet people are afraid now that they are going to lose the language, an anxiety which I think is ridiculous.

Mr. Rooney

I heard the Minister indicating that this Bill was not designed for the Gaeltacht, but that the Gaeltacht areas would get special treatment.

Mr. Dillon

Who is right, the Parliamentary Secretary or the Minister?

Mr. Bartley

We both have the same word.

Mr. Dillon

If so, words have lost their meaning.

Mr. Lemass

Surely you will allow a Deputy on your own side to talk.

Mr. Hickey

Would the Minister clarify the position and so avoid all confusion?

Mr. Lemass

Clarify Deputy Dillon?

Mr. Rooney

When the Minister was making his observations regarding this Bill he said he had a greater measure of hope rather than confidence in its success, but in any case that it was worth the trial and that he proposed to go ahead.

I want the House to realise, in connection with this amendment, that there is a big difference between a grant and a loan, especially when you take into consideration the mentality it creates. Many a person will say: "We will take a chance with regard to getting this grant. We cannot lose anything anyway, and it is something for nothing at the expense of somebody."

On the other hand, the loan actually does what the grant is designed to do. If you want to invest money either in building or equipment, whether it be a loan or a grant, it is finance which enables you to get whatever you want. There is an inclination to accept a grant when you know that you are not going to be at a risk but in the case of a loan you will avail of it if you realise that it is really going to be useful to you and I think myself that something should be done with regard to the issue of these loans to ensure that it will not be just a waste of money, that there will be some return got and that it will be more than just a matter of taking a chance on giving out the grants in the hope of success.

It would be a much better idea if we could have arrangements in this Bill, whereby, under certain circumstances, a loan would be made and under other circumstances that a grant would be made. The loan implies some kind of obligation on the person who gets it but the grant certainly does not put any obligation on anybody once he has accepted it. I believe the loan will encourage enterprise and encourage an effort to make a success of whatever the project is. I was very much surprised at the statement of the Minister for Industry and Commerce regarding the Anglicisation that this Bill may bring about in the Gaeltacht areas. It is a consideration that should not arise if we can improve the economy of these districts by means of this Bill. The Bill should be extended in order to create that measure of prosperity in other areas.

Dr. ffrench-O'Carroll

I am opposed to this amendment because I think it creates difficulties which would not justify its inclusion. What I like about the Bill is that it sets out to assess what was very aptly called the competitive disadvantage that private enterprise would be at if starting industries in these areas and that it sets out to neutralise or to make amends for that competitive disadvantage by the making of grants towards the setting up of the industry or by giving other assistance.

I feel that if a loan were used, it would be much more difficult and would be very hard to administer in a general way. If a loan were used, it would be necessary for the board to review the whole trading position of the industry each year. It would be necessary for them to take into consideration things like bad management and high costings. Co-ordination would be very difficult if you had some industries on grants and some on loans. It would be frightfully difficult for the board to adjudicate fairly between those two industries. I support the suggestion made by Deputy Morrissey in connection with the industry which had already been in existence and which had struggled on in very difficult circumstances, that it would be unfair if it was forced by the amendment to take a loan instead of a grant.

As far as the Gaeltacht position is concerned, I understand that the Bill did not exclude the areas of the Gaeltacht and that the Gaeltacht was given an additional guarantee that where private enterprise could not be depended upon to do anything for them, the State would initiate such industries. That is the impression I got. I do not think it is very unlikely that successful business men would go down to form industries in the Gaeltacht areas and I think the State will be ready to give them additional benefits.

Captain Cowan

Mr. Dillon

On a point of order. The amendment under discussion relates, not to industries that are to be started, but is strictly confined to industries which come under the heading——

Mr. Corry

On a point of order——

——both to Deputy Dillon and Deputy Morrissey. I do not intend to take up any further time of the House on this matter except to say that I agree entirely with what the Parliamentary Secretary has said and with what the Minister has already said, that special measures will be taken to create employment for these Fíor-Ghaeltacht areas.

Mr. McQuillan

I propose to be very brief and I hope to relate my remarks to the amendment. Whatever hope there is of this Bill doing good in its present form I believe, if this amendment were accepted, that that good would be taken from the Bill. I have welcomed the Bill and I am not going to repeat what I have already said. I have welcomed the Bill as a gesture towards a solution of the problems that exist in the undeveloped areas, with particular reference to the Gaeltacht areas. I am glad that the Bill has gone so far, if only to prove that this gesture, as I shall describe it, is a gesture that will fail because private enterprise—and this is a Bill dealing with private enterprise—is not fit to tackle the problem of the undeveloped areas. For that reason I welcome the Bill which will prove once and for all that nibbling with the problem of want of development in the West of Ireland through grants and private enterprise is a waste of time. The sooner that is proved the better. For that reason I welcome the Bill.

So far as the amendment is concerned, whatever little chance the Bill has of being successful—and I hope it will prove of some benefit for the sake of the people in those areas—there will be none if the amendment is accepted. I do not know how serious Deputy Dillon is about the amendment, because he was Minister for Agriculture for three years and during that period he was concerned with a body known as the Agricultural Credit Corporation and, if ever there was a body in the State that should give loans without interest, it is that particular concern. I would not go so far as to say that farmers when they need a loan should get it completely free of interest, but the rate of interest charged by this corporation to my mind is fantastic. Yet we have a man, who was a Minister and who is a prominent personality in this House, putting down an amendment that there should be a loan repayable in annual instalments with interest over a period of years.

Mr. Dillon

Instead of a grant.

Mr. McQuillan

I am sorry that Deputy Dillon when he was a Minister did not think of that bright idea in connection with his own Department. He would have done a tremendous day's work for the farmers.

If the House had accepted last night the amendment moved by Deputy Desmond, we could tie in the two types of development at one time; we could utilise private enterprise, in so far as it went, to develop the undeveloped areas and the Fíor-Ghaeltacht and, at the same time, utilise the amendment and, consequently, the Bill for the purpose of promoting a special kind of State enterprise in any of the areas where it was felt, for one reason or another, it was undesirable to allow a private company to commence operations. Last night that encrusted socialist, Deputy Cowan, as he was a few months ago, abandoned that great depth of faith which he has shown on other occasions in the socialist cause and concept and walked into the Lobby on the side of private enterprise as against State activity which would help the Fíor-Ghaeltacht areas.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Will the Deputy come to the amendment?

Mr. Norton

I want to come to the amendment. As I understand it, it seems to me a reasonable amendment. We are now engaged in passing a Bill the object of which is to make £2,000,000 available to promote private enterprise in the undeveloped areas. That £2,000,000 does not belong to private enterprise. It is £2,000,000 of public money which has to be raised from the pockets of the taxpayers and which may be raised in such a form that every citizen, and particularly the lowly section of our community, will have to contribute. As custodians of the public interest, we ought to concern ourselves with how this public money will be spent. While it may be necessary, in order to encourage industry in the undeveloped areas, to give grants in special cases where no other method of inducement will encourage the establishment of an industry, we ought to be careful I think when it comes to giving a grant to any person, firm, or corporation which in fact may not need a grant.

Mr. Dillon

And is already established and working.

Mr. Norton

Exactly. Let us take a specific case: it may be necessary, for example, in an undeveloped area to come to the aid of an existing industry and say: "If you can expand your activities this board is prepared to give you the facilities set out here in Section 5 of the Bill." But under Section 5 of the Bill the only thing you can do for the company already in existence is to give the body a grant. The company may not, in fact, need a grant.

Circumstances may not be such as to justify a grant and, as we are dealing with public money, is there anything wrong in saying to the undertaking which is already in existence: "You expand your activities; you employ more people and we will be willing to give you a loan free of interest, the repayments to be determined in any way we agree with you." It will be possible in an arrangement of that kind to give an industry £5,000 or £10,000 to help it to extend its activities and not to charge the industry a single penny interest on the £10,000. But it is not unreasonable I suggest to say to the company: "Well and good, if you can repay that money in the ultimate future free of interest, as the money has come from the public purse it is not unreasonable to ask you to do so and the money will go back into the kitty and be used to help other people in similar circumstances or to create new industries in undeveloped areas."

Is there anything onerous in that? So far as the man who wants to extend his industry is concerned he gets all the money he wants. He gets the £10,000 and goes and buys equipment worth £10,000. He knows he will not have to pay a penny interest on the £10,000 and he will know also that he is only expected to repay the actual money given to him if at any time he is able to repay it without impairment of his industry.

I do not regard that as an onerous condition at all. I am quite sure that if this Bill extended to other areas you would have large numbers of people queueing up in order to take advantage of the facilities offered. As this amendment only relates to an industry already established and has nothing to do with industries we hope to establish, what is wrong in saying to the industry already established: "We will give you the money free of interest; pay it back when you can pay it back and let it go back into the kitty to repeat the good work again which it has done for you by our giving it to you free of interest, repayment provisions at your leisure."

I do not think that is an unreasonable provision. I do not think the acceptance of this amendment would cause any hardship to potential beneficiaries or in the slightest degree impair the Bill because in my opinion the Bill has swung too far, perhaps, in one direction in making it possible to give an annual grant to existing industries. If we know the financial circumstances of the company we should have a chance of deciding that we will give them a loan free of interest if that is all they need. They may not need a grant.

I want to argue this purely on its merits irrespective of who introduced it. As we are dealing with public money, we ought not lightly to fritter away the public's money in making substantial grants towards private enterprise when we are not satisfied that private enterprise needs such grants and when, in fact, a loan would be sufficient for our purpose, namely, to expand the industry and absorb our people into employment.

Captain Cowan

Did Deputy Norton mention any one existing industry in the undeveloped areas that he has in mind that could be developed?

Mr. Dillon

Bacon curing in Castlebar, Claremorris and Tralee. They are badly in need of development.

Mr. Lemass

I am not sure if the Chair has ruled out the red herring that Deputy Dillon paraded when speaking on this amendment.

General Mulcahy

I think I would plead to the Chair to allow the fullest and most enlightening discussion by the Minister on the matters that have been raised because they are very important matters.

I asked them what safeguards they thought should be inserted in the Bill and they said no effective safeguards could be devised. I expressed the opinion, I still hold it, that in respect of these outlying Fíor-Ghaeltacht areas, no assistance we could give would, in fact, be likely to induce ordinary private commercial enterprise into them. They accepted that view but indicated that they would prefer industrial development to take place in the surrounding areas where there was still sufficient Irish in use to create the right type of atmosphere for Irish speakers and, at the same time, little danger of damage being done in the limited area where the Irish language is still the normal everyday language of the people.

They urged strongly that industrial development or any other development in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht areas, as they defined them—and they did not confine this to industrial activity; they referred also to the development of afforestation and fisheries—should be entrusted to a State organisation so constituted that there would be no risk of an anglicising element being introduced. State organisations which would be under orders from the Government to subordinate the commercial success or the economics of what they were doing to the primary task of maintaining the Gaelic nature of the areas.

Now, let me turn to the amendment. I have said since I introduced the Bill on Second Reading—I have said it again and again until those listening to me must be sick from hearing it—that the aid that will be given under this Bill will be designed for the purpose of ensuring that industrial enterprise in the West will be at no disadvantage in competition with similar enterprise in the East. I said that if there was, in fact, no competitive disadvantage in a western location that there would be no aid given. I said that the responsibility of An Foras Tionscal would be to relate the aid given to their assessment of the competitive disadvantage of the location.

Not at all. That was not the problem. The fact is that the worst way of financing industrial enterprises is by repayable capital. Money invested in a factory or machinery or in any physical asset of that kind should be invested permanently. It is asking too much of any industrial enterprise that they should be able to remunerate capital and repay it at the same time. That is a bad thing.

Mr. Dillon

Not remunerate it. That is the particular thing I am not asking. I am only asking them to repay it.

Mr. Lemass

Mr. Lemass

Yes. The aim of the Bill is to level up so that industry in the West will be at no competitive disadvantage.

Amendment put.

The Dáil divided:—Tá, 24; Níl, 67.

Tá

Blowick, Joseph.
Byrne, Alfred.
Cafferky, Dominick.
Cawley, Patrick.
Corish, Brendan.
Crotty, Patrick J.
Davin, William.
Desmond, Daniel.
Dillon, James M.
Donnellan, Michael.
Esmonde, Anthony C.
Everett, James.
Fagan, Charles.
Giles, Patrick.
Keyes, Michael.
Kyne, Thomas A.
Leary, Johnny.
Lynch, John (North Kerry).
Murphy, William.
Norton, William.
O'Hara, Thomas.
O'Sullivan, Denis.
Palmer, Patrick W.
Roddy, Joseph.

Níl

Aiken, Frank.
Allen, Denis.
Bartley, Gerald.
Beegan, Patrick.
Blaney, Neil T.
Boland, Gerald.
Bourke, Dan.
Brady, Philip A.
Brady, Seán.
Brennan, Joseph.
Brennan, Thomas.
Breslin, Cormac.
Briscoe, Robert.
Browne, Noel C.
Buckley, Seán.
Burke, Patrick.
Butler, Bernard.
Carter, Frank.
Childers, Erskine.
Cogan, Patrick.
Colley, Harry.
Collins, James J.
Corry, Martin J.
Costello, Declan.
Cowan, Peadar.
Crowley, Honor Mary.
Crowley, Tadhg.
Cunningham, Liam.
Davern, Michael J.
Derrig, Thomas.
De Valera, Eamon.
De Valera, Vivion.
Dockrell, Henry P.
Dockrell, Maurice E.
Duignan, Peadar.
Fanning, John.
ffrench-O'Carroll, Michael.
Flanagan, Seán.
Flynn, John.
Flynn, Stephen.
Hillery, Patrick J.
Hilliard, Michael.
Humphreys, Francis.
Kennedy, Michael J.
Lemass, Seán.
Little, Patrick J.
Lynch, Jack (Cork Borough).
MacCarthy, Seán.
McEllistrim, Thomas.
MacEntee, Seán.
McMenamin, Daniel.
McQuillan, John.
Maher, Peadar.
Morrissey, Daniel.
Moylan, Seán.
Mulcahy, Richard.
Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
O'Donnell, Patrick.
O'Higgins, Thomas F. (Jun.).
O'Reilly, Matthew.
Rice, Bridget M.
Ruttledge, Patrick J.
Ryan, James.
Ryan, Mary B.
Sheldon, William A.W.
Traynor, Oscar.
Walsh, Thomas.

I think so.

As I say, in the light of what the Minister said, that is the only thing of substance that is going to be done under this Bill. We will find that the number of persons prepared to put up a substantial sum of money for an industry which has never been functioning in the West of Ireland heretofore because they are going to get a grant of money will be few and far between. If they have capital which they are going to put at risk, I do not think the promise of a grant, no greater than is sufficient to balance nicely the economic disadvantages of going west, will induce the average possessor of £10,000 or £20,000 to put his personal fortune in jeopardy. I think the best way would be to get an old industry, which possibly got run down but was capable of development in ancillary fields, to employ 200 where heretofore it employed 100, or to employ 40 where heretofore it only employed 20. I think the Bill, as amended, is one that no responsible Government will long operate in its present form. I should like any Deputy to tell me how he can support a grant of £10,000 to any proprietor of any substantial business in any part of the West of Ireland and justify it to the hard-working people who live around him.

Mr. Blowick

Like Deputy Dillon, I feel absolutely bewildered in regard to this Bill. I was prepared to support it. I hoped it would be at least a start in the right direction towards doing something for the Gaeltacht, but, from the assurance given by the Minister during the course of the debate on the amendment, I feel absolutely at sea. Deputy Bartley has kindly offered to explain it to the Dáil and I hope he or somebody else will. The Minister has repeated practically word for word what he said last night, that he did not think this Bill would benefit the half-a-dozen parishes which constitute the Fíor-Ghaeltacht. The Minister has extraordinary power under the Bill. I do not agree that it is limited to half-a-dozen parishes. I believe it covers more than half-a-dozen parishes in Mayo and Galway alone, not to speak of Donegal and other areas. I do not agree that the language is dying so rapidly as is suggested.

In case Deputies may think that this board which is to be established will have the sweeping powers, for instance, that the Land Commission have, I can tell them that is not the case. The board will be appointed by the Minister and it can be removed at will. The Land Commissioners cannot be removed except by a very complicated procedure. It takes a vote of this House to remove them; they must be impeached, because they have the same tenure of office as High Court judges. I will not say that the members of the board will be completely at the mercy of the Minister, but I believe that they will not have the same freedom as the Land Commissioners or the Revenue Commissioners. We cannot conceive any board which will be established under this Bill running counter to the Minister's wishes. If the Minister expresses a wish or desire to the board that a particular industry should not be established within the Fíor-Ghaeltacht, I cannot see the board giving a grant towards it.

The Fíor-Ghaeltacht is out of this Bill. The Minister has assured us that places like Galway and the towns in Donegal, Mayo, Kerry and Clare will not benefit, that there would be no purpose in establishing industries in these towns; that they would not be of much help towards the real spirit behind the Bill. Even any industry which has not a competitor in the East will not be given a grant under the Bill.

At this stage, I am asking myself what kind of industry will get a grant. I do not know of any. I am completely, bewildered by the Minister's reply in the last half hour. The most damnable part of the Minister's statement, in my opinion, is where he revealed a conversation which took place between himself and some members of Cómhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge regarding the Fíor-Ghaeltacht. I want to tell Deputy Bartley and Deputy Lynch that the people in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht are just as well informed as anybody in the City of Dublin, through the newspapers, the radio, etc., and they cannot help feeling to-night that they are very much in the same category as the Indians in the reservations in America. I think the most damnable blow ever struck at the remaining portion of the Fíor-Ghaeltacht is the Minister's admission now. If that is the attitude that Cómhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge and the Minister and the Government are adopting, then I say to blazes with the Bill. The people of the Fíor-Ghaeltacht want none of your charity. We will not accept it. We have a right to live. We do not agree with the statements made by Deputy Bartley and by the Minister for Lands a short time ago that the Fíor-Ghaeltacht should be depopulated and the people pushed out to some other part of the country. That will never be tolerated.(Interruptions.)

I think it is a damnable thing that any elected representative should stand up here and cold-bloodedly advocate the depopulation of that part of our country which rears the best and finest of our people.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is not relevant on the Fourth Stage of the Bill and I suggest that Deputies might reserve their speeches for the Final Stage.

Question:—"That the Bill be received for final consideration"— put and agreed to.

Mr. Blowick

Tell us what you will do for the Fíor-Ghaeltacht?

Mr. Bartley

I have told you.

Mr. Cafferky

This Bill was introduced with great pomp, but I am afraid it is going to leave us all rather bewildered, due not to the Bill itself but to the explanation given to us this afternoon by the Minister for Industry and Commerce. I was surprised to hear the statement of the Minister that it would not operate in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht. That position has not been cleared up by anything said later by the Minister or by any speaker from the Government side of the House. The Minister's statement was published in the Irish Press and repeated here this afternoon. It is that statement which has created all the trouble. I, and I think every Deputy on this side, understood that the Bill was intended mainly for the Fíor-Ghaeltacht and the congested areas. We are now told that the Fíor-Ghaeltacht is limited to six parishes. Mayo is not included in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht. I can tell the House that, in quite a number of parishes in Mayo, and particularly West Mayo, the people speak their native language. It has survived there. Mayo is as much a part of the Fíor-Ghaeltacht as any part of Galway,

Mr. Cafferky

I want to say that I am dissatisfied with the explanation given by the Minister to the House, to the effect that the Bill will be limited to a certain area in the County Galway, namely, six parishes which are known as the Fíor-Ghaeltacht. I want to submit to the House that that limitation which is put on the Fíor-Ghaeltacht is unfair. I regard the Fíor-Ghaeltacht as being a much wider and larger area than that described here this afternoon. If the Bill is going to be limited in that way then I want to say that I am gravely dissatisfied. It is because of that that I am asking for an explanation.

In connection with the amendment tabled by Deputy Dillon, I want to say that I am not in agreement with the giving of grants to certain industries which have been established over a number of years in the West of Ireland. These have been protected by quotas and tariffs and it is quite obvious and quite reasonable to assume that, notwithstanding the fact that they have got certain protection and certain assistance over a period of years they will seek that assistance which will be paid for by the taxpayer who has been obliged to provide a considerable amount of money for this purpose.

An Leas-Cheann Chomhairle

The Deputy should have said that on the Second Reading of the Bill. The purpose of the Bill is to give grants to help industrial advancement in the Gaeltacht. He is now speaking against giving the grants. He should have said that on the Second Reading.

Mr. Dillon

Surely the Deputy can condemn the proposition contained in the Bill, to give grants to persons who do not need grants.

Mr. Cafferky

Arising out of that amendment, the Minister indicated that the Fíor-Ghaeltacht would not benefit under this Bill, and that, on the other hand, industrialists within the Fíor-Ghaeltacht would be open to apply for grants. These two statements are not identical. Either the Bill is going to operate in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht or it is not; either industrialists in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht will be in a position to apply for these grants and get them or not. That is what we want to clear up. I am not opposed to the principle of the Bill. As I indicated in the course of the Second Reading, if the Bill did no more than focus the attention of the Government on the problem after being asleep for 30 years, it is doing a good day's work.

I do not expect a great deal from the Bill. I do not believe, as I said, that private enterprise will solve the problem but I do say this, that in the last day or two the speeches that have been made from the Government side of the House, particularly from the Ministers and the Parliamentary Secretaries, indicate that the whole thing is most paltry.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Government (Mr. Lynch)

What Parliamentary Secretaries spoke?

Mr. Cafferky

Deputy Bartley.

Mr. Lynch

The Deputy used the plural.

Mr. Dillon

There are so many of you now.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Maybe we could get a bit of order, to hear Deputy Cafferky.

Mr. Cafferky

I am prepared to support the final stages of the Bill but I want to register a very strong protest against the exclusion of any area in the course of the administration of this Bill. I think that you will not injure or endanger the Irish way of life or the Irish language in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht by promoting the establishment of industries within the Fíor-Ghaeltacht. If you expect the citizens of the Fíor-Ghaeltacht to come out into the Breac-Ghaeltacht, into parts of Mayo or Galway, to secure employment, you are endangering them in that way as much as if you erected industries in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht.

You can take, for example, the tourist industry. The Fíor-Ghaeltacht is one of the places where that industry is promoted and encouraged. The people who visit those places are not Irish-speaking people; most of them are foreigners. If we assume that the erection of industries in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht areas is going to endanger the Irish language or the Irish way of life we are entitled to assume that the development of tourism would do likewise. That argument produced by the Minister for Industry and Commerce does not carry sense and we must agree with Deputy Dillon and Deputy Blowick that the whole Bill is eyewash, that it is being introduced for a certain purpose.

I am not in agreement at all with the giving of grants to industries that were in existence on the occasion of the passage of this Bill into law. I do not see why the taxpayers should be called upon to help them to continue for nine or ten years fattening and battening at the expense of the taxpayers, which is a deplorable state of affairs. I have no objection at all to the encouragement of the establishment of new industries and to assisting people who wish to come together and who are prepared to invest money. But I would object strongly to the provision of money secured from the taxpayers for the expansion of industry or for the purchase of machinery or any other ways or means to continue these industries that are in existence and have been in existence over a period of years and have received considerable protection from the various Governments in office. They have failed and they are now coming back to the taxpayer for further assistance. I think it is wrong and indicates bad management on the part of these industries. If they have failed to make ends meet and to prove their worth over the years, I do not see why the taxpayers should be obliged to help them out. It would be more appropriate to develop State enterprise than to provide the taxpayers' money for industries of that kind in which this Dáil is not permitted to question their activities nor the expenditure of that money. I tabled a question to the Minister for Industry and Commerce and I discovered that we are unable to secure information as to how the money granted is used or what has been done with it. I am opposed to that.

Mr. Cogan

I want to express my amazement at the amount of confusion that appears to exist in the minds of certain members of the Opposition. I think they must thank their leaders for the existence of that confusion. This is an Undeveloped Areas Bill, and if there are any undeveloped areas in this country which demand immediate development they are the brains of some of our ex-Ministers. The extraordinary lack of logic, lack of common sense, that has been shown in the arguments put up against this Bill amazes Deputies on this side of the House. We have here an objection being raised by Deputy Blowick and Deputy Cafferky on the grounds that it has not gone as far as they would like it to go.

Yet the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary have both made it clear that they are going to go much further than the Bill in regard to the Fíor-Ghaeltacht areas inasmuch as they are going, by private enterprise, to develop industries in these areas. The objection raised by the Opposition is that the Government propose to do more for the Fíor-Ghaeltacht areas than has been included under the Bill.

Mr. O'Higgins

The Deputy has been absent during the discussion.

Mr. Cogan

Deputy O'Higgins was in my constituency recently and he got into serious trouble down there.

Mr. O'Higgins

I will get you out of that place yet.

Mr. Cogan

Is it not clear that this Bill is setting forth to do one thing, and that is to promote industrial development in western areas which can compete with industries in the rest of the country? In addition to that, the Minister, in the course of the discussion, as also did the Parliamentary Secretary, made it clear that the utmost that could be done by way of providing public enterprise, particularly in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht areas, would be done. There is a lack of logic on the part of those Deputies who oppose the Bill because it seeks to promote private enterprise and then finds it cannot because the Minister has indicated that he is going to develop Fíor-Ghaeltacht areas by public enterprise. There seems to be complete confusion of mind on these two conflicting lines of argument.

We had Deputy Dillon protesting strongly against a proposal to promote the expansion of existing industries in the areas specified in the Bill. Surely, if it is desirable to help a new industry to be established in the undeveloped areas it should also be desirable to help an existing industry to expand there if there are strong reasons why that industry is unable to expand by reason of its location and the disadvantages which it suffers as compared with other industries. I think Deputy Dillon mentioned a specific figure of £10,000 which an existing industry might obtain under this Bill. I am sure that a very strong case would have to be made on behalf of an industry to secure a loan of that nature. It would certainly have to prove, first of all, that it was at a disadvantage when competing with industries in other parts of the country. It would have to prove that it would, when expanded, be able to give considerable employment. Having proved that and having justified its claim under the very rigid provisions which are contained in this Bill, I think there could be no objection to securing the capital which it requires, any more than there would be any objection to a new industry securing the necessary capital in order to assist it to get established.

Deputy Dillon said, of course, that there are no precedents for such a large grant. First of all, the grant does not go into the pocket of any individual but is used to purchase the plant and equipment which are necessary for the extension of an existing industry or for the establishment of a new one. Indeed, there are precedents for large sums of money being given to people who are regarded as having considerable means. For example, under the land rehabilitation scheme, lords living in demesnes within walls got substantial amounts of money in order to drain and reclaim their land. I have no objection to that; the money will not go into the pocket of the lord or whoever may be the recipient. It will be used towards the ultimate benefit of the nation, in so far as the land will be improved. Deputy Dillon himself when he was Minister for Agriculture established a precedent by giving assistance of that kind and I am not objecting to that.

It is a pity there have been so many wild, confusing arguments expressed against this Bill by people who have proclaimed all along, and are still proclaiming, that they intend to support it. Why can they not see in this a reasonable attempt to do something to help this country to develop industries, and to do something which is not in conflict with, but complementary to, everything else that is being done by other Government Departments, such as the Forestry Division? These people should realise that what is being done now is an addition to what has been done and what will continue to be done by State Departments which are already in existence and by other ones which will be established both in the country generally and in the Gaeltacht.

Dr. Browne

In company with other Deputies, I welcome this Bill. It is, I feel, clear for the first time to many, such as myself, what the limitations of this Bill are. It will occasion a certain amount of disappointment in many areas in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht because its scope is so limited—that the pattern of development following this Bill will be around the larger towns in the West of Ireland. Everybody will welcome, I feel sure, any development which brings an industry across the Shannon to the West. I would like to know what the present position is in view of the limitation of this Bill to the Breac-Ghaeltacht. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary would let us know what propositions there are, if any, for the development of the Fíor-Ghaeltacht. The hope of many people was that this Bill was to be directed to the development of these areas, and it is hoped that it may be possible to get an extension of the areas mentioned in the Bill. I feel that the recommendations of Cómhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge need not, nor should not, be taken so fully into consideration and should not be accepted as valid reasons for keeping the Fíor-Ghaeltacht outside the province of the Bill.

I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary, and many other Deputies in this House know Connemara better than I do and realise that it is the most undeveloped and underdeveloped part of the whole of Ireland. It is from these areas that there is the greatest incidence of emigration. In fact, if one were to start an industry in Lettermore, Carraroe, Lettermullen or Carna it would be very difficult to find people to employ. The reason is that there are only three grades or sections of people residing in these districts at the present time—the very old, the very young and the small landholder. The young adult boy and girl have to get out of these areas. They are getting out of them and have got out of them during the past 30 or 40 years. It is, I think, unfortunate that this Bill does not intend to put a stop to emigration.

We profess to attach a tremendous amount of importance to the sanctity of the family and to the preservation of home life. It does seem to me to be rather a contradiction of those professions that we should accept that these families in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht must continue to have that broken pattern of existence, and must continue to emigrate to Birmingham, for instance. That is bad enough but they must even move away from their own home areas to some other part of the country if they are to eke out an existence. It is a shame that every family in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht must continue to be broken up until all that remain are the very old, the very young and the small landholder. The small landholder educates his five or six children to get rid of them to other countries. I think that is a very serious consideration, and one which I would urge the Parliamentary Secretary to consider in his administration of this Bill. I feel that he must realise how serious the question is.

The fact of the matter is that the recommendations of Cómhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge are retrograde. I do not think that we should be unduly worried or frightened about the incursion of new industries into the Gaeltacht and I am quite certain that our industrialists are not so completely anti-national as to be incapable of providing an industry which would be supervised by Irish speakers and if possible, native speakers. I think there must be very many first-class technicians in Birmingham, and other places, who have an excellent knowledge of Irish. There are many in Glasgow, particularly, who might be persuaded to come back and provide the technical knowledge and assistance for industries started in the Gaeltacht. I think that is a policy which might be energetically pursued. I do not think it fair to leave people living there in the conditions in which they are at present living, but it appears as if the Government considers that there is nothing open to them except to evacuate the people to areas where they can live under reasonably good home conditions. The Cómhdháil has assured the Government that there is no necessity to establish industries controlled by private enterprise in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht, and that any effort in that direction should be carried out under the different existing Government Departments. It is obvious that these Government Departments have been in existence for the last three decades but yet there has been a greater exodus from the Fíor-Ghaeltacht areas during that time than there ever was prior to that. These Government Departments have really done nothing effective to stop emigration. I should like to know if there is any evidence that they will make up for their very considerable deficiencies in that regard in past years, at any future time.

From my own knowledge of their activities I was very disappointed indeed. It is of interest to note in relation to the factories which the Government Departments did start—there was one factory in Carraroe and another in Rossaveel—that the managers of these factories who had been appointed by the Government could not speak a word of Irish. That created the impression in the area that it was necessary and a prerequisite for appointment to a position under any Government Department that one must have English, and that Irish was not acceptable. I shall not develop this point beyond saying that the contribution which Government Departments have made to the solution of the Fíor-Ghaeltacht problem has, up to the present, been a hopeless failure and that the factories promoted by them have been the silly, pin-money type of factory which could not possibly provide a man or a girl with sufficient income on which to marry and rear their own family. A wage of £2, £3 or £4 a week is not sufficient to enable a man to stay in the Gaeltacht and found his own family there. The industries to be established, if they are to be established at all, have to be of sufficient extent to enable a man to earn up to £5, £6 or £7 in order to justify his getting married and supporting a family in the area.

I think the progress which has been made, such as it is, has been very disappointing to many people who had hoped, because of the Taoiseach's considerable interest in this problem, and because of his statements in the past, that the language could only be revived by an extension from the Fíor-Ghaeltacht and the Breac-Ghaeltacht to other parts of Ireland, that this was an attempt to deal with this very serious problem.

In fact, it appears to be a Bill calculated to attract people away from the Fíor-Ghaeltacht and to evacuate from the Fíor-Ghaeltacht all the people who can speak the native language which is, in the view of those competent to judge, the only language which can possibly survive rather than the manufactured language which nobody is anxious to speak. I would draw the attention of the Government to that particular point.

It has, nevertheless, been a source of considerable pleasure and satisfaction to many people that this Bill has been introduced. As was pointed out by Deputy Dr. ffrench-O'Carroll, it is a pilot scheme which will, presumably, give a certain amount of experience to the Government in relation to the future handling of these terribly difficult problems. At the same time, I think there is considerable disappointment in these areas which have been neglected by successive Governments, amongst people who are anxious to cling to the way of life of their fathers and forefathers and who see no sign or hope of an improvement in their lot. To them there is nothing left but emigration. It may help that they may have to migrate only to the Breac-Ghaeltacht but the pattern of life to which they have been accustomed is already thrown overboard and in relation to these people that is more precious than it is to people in any other part of Ireland.

Mr. Dillon

It is a shock that Deputy Dr. Browne feels that the rest of us do no more than lip-service to the principle of family life, as a matter of vital interest to well-ordered society. I hope he can be assured on that score, but I know of no philosophy of family life, consistent with well-ordered society, which envisages men and women raising, in Deputy Dr. Browne's words, six, seven or eight children, educating them and regarding the family as disrupted if, in their maturity, their children should fare forth into the world and, deserting their parents, take unto themselves, in their prime, wives and husbands to found Christian families of their own.

I have always felt that one of the tragedies of rural Ireland was the tragic feature of the house of old bachelors and old maids, men waiting for the girls to marry and girls hoping that the men would marry—the girls waiting for their brothers to marry, cliamhán isteach, so that they could marry themselves and the men waiting for their sisters to marry, cliamhán isteach, so that they might marry. I see nothing wrong, nothing to be deplored, in a family reared in dignity and decency, dispersing in maturity to repeat the process again and again. That is what I want to see. The difference in the approach of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture from the view expressed by Deputy Blowick and myself, is that I think the disease which people are prone to acquire in Leinster House and in the capital city is to look upon our people in the West of Ireland as a kind of problem race apart from us, as I would have said on another occasion, as a pain in the neck. If Parliament gets that idea into its head, it can appropriate all the money that ever circulated in Ireland and the more it spends the more damage it will do.

My sole desire in regard to the Gaeltacht is, where the people's holdings are so small as to be uneconomic and irremediable, to try and make holdings available elsewhere, but not to tell the people to go. That is what I can never understand. What right does this Parliament claim, because persons live in Connemara or the Rosses, to tell them to go, when no one would dare to go to Laois, Offaly, Tipperary or Westmeath and tell the people to change their place of residence from there? You have the right, I think, to go to a rundale estate or a very congested area and announce that you have in hands five, ten or 20 holdings of an attractive character in Meath or Westmeath or Longford or Galway; that there is a problem here the solution of which would be made easier if some holdings were surrendered for distribution amongst neighbours and, if there is anyone willing to step forward to apply for a holding here or elsewhere, he will have his preference. But I repudiate the approach to this problem that this Parliament has, or ever will have, the right to go down and order the people of the Gaeltacht to clear out.

There are hundreds of families in the Gaeltacht at present whose circumstances may appear to their affluent neighbours to be unbearable, but they are the best judges of that and they do not want to change it. They do not want to give up their homes. They want to have, and they have the right to ask this Parliament to provide, an opportunity of earning their own living by hard work on their own holding. They have the right to say: "In asking that, we are asking nothing more than the rest of the people in the country have without feeling themselves under any obligation to anybody for enjoying it."

What is in the Bill is far different from what this House was led to believe was in it when it was being expounded. I ask the House to remember that this Bill passed its Second Stage and its principle was discussed in one form. In that form, I came under heavy censure because I said to Gaeltacht Deputies: "How can you allow your neighbours in the Gaeltacht to be used as an alibi for passing a Bill which is going to do nothing for the Gaeltacht" and I was told that I was sinning against the light; there was the text of the Bill and who dared deny that it was going to shower benefits on the Gaeltacht? Then we had the Committee Stage and a new principle was introduced, that not only new enterprises would come under its benefactions but existing enterprises. Then we had the speech of the Minister for Industry and Commerce as reported:—

On the Committee Stage he made certain observations which it is extremely difficult to reconcile with the observations of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture. It is obvious that the technique adopted by the Government is that they put up their Minister to say one thing and they put up a junior Minister to say another thing. They have achieved the additional astonishing progress with the busted flush of political life, our spoiled five, inasmuch as they have been induced to rush into the arena and say: "Yes, yes, yes" to three diametrically opposite propositions and to glory in their achievement.

I can propound three propositions that are diametrically opposed in truth: that Fianna Fáil is efficient; that Fianna Fáil is honest, that Fianna Fáil is in any sense desirable. Each of these propositions is diametrically opposed. It is significant that some of the rank-and-file of Fianna Fáil had some rag of decency to drape around them and crept away one by one. There is not a mutter out of any of them. But the four survivors of the busted flush rose like valiant men to say that to their mind conviction was carried that this Bill did apply to the Fíor-Ghaeltacht and that this Bill did not apply to the Fíor-Ghaeltacht; and they congratulated the Minister on having brought to the House a Bill which wrought such a wonderful miracle. Then they too crept away.

What has happened to us all? There is not a single representative of the Gaeltacht in the Fianna Fáil Party who would get up at this stage and say one word of remonstrance to his Leader for having brought them into the Lobby to take powers to develop the Gaeltacht when they now learn, on this last stage of the Bill, that there is one part of Ireland where this Bill will not be allowed to function, and that is the Fíor-Ghaeltacht. I think the Gaeltacht Deputies of Donegal, Mayo, Galway and Kerry were persuaded on the Second Stage to believe that this Bill was primarily designed to serve the Fíor-Ghaeltacht. I think that loathsome fraud is one ground for rejecting this Bill.

The second ground is provided by a development that transpired yesterday. I do not upbraid the Minister for Industry and Commerce in this matter. I think the Minister stumbled into this situation without perceiving its implication. The House accepted the provision that we should give grants to initiate completely new industries which would be labouring under a handicap because of their geographical location in the West. It was against his own judgment that he agreed to make provision for existing industries. That proposal to make provision for the expansion of existing business in the West of Ireland by way of grant guarantees that no decent, honest business man will avail of the Bill and that those who are prepared to avail of it and take grants for extending their own business are pretty well guaranteed in advance to be outside its scope and incapable of getting accommodation under it.

An honourable business man if he has capital available to him to expand his business will not dare to borrow capital because under the existing tax structure a borrower who borrows capital to expand a business can never hope to pay it back because taxation takes such a large section of the profit earned the balance is barely sufficient to pay the interest on the capital raised. I think any business man might with perfectly honourable consistency say: "If the Government are prepared to put at my disposal capital free of interest I will gladly give them any profit on it for ten or 15 years in redemption of my loan because I am acquiring a property for those who come after me."

Mr. Morrissey

I am only waiting for the Deputy to sit down.

Mr. S. Flanagan

Apparently, common sense, or as Deputy Dillon would say, the plain meaning of language means nothing to the Deputies opposite. Who is going to tie the Minister if he says there are six parishes in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht. It is disingenuous of any Deputy to claim that the Minister is using a figure that he wants to be tied to. If it is self-evident that there are seven, when he says six, the former surely will be the accepted figure.

I cannot see any logic in the attitude adopted by the Deputies opposite. If they now claim that they were tricked or, to use Deputy Cafferky's expression on the Second Stage, that they were "kidded" and make absurd remarks about what is going to happen at the next election as a result of this Bill, well, the people will decide that. The Deputies opposite should make up their minds as to whether they welcome the Bill or not. I appreciate that to some extent grants given to undertakings which are successful, could give rise to questions such as Deputy Dillon referred to, but, surely, the Minister or this House does not envisage a situation in which money would be given to people merely for their own advancement.

This Bill is perfectly clear about that. Section 5 provides for the development and maintenance in a congested area of an industrial undertaking where its establishment would be likely to provide or maintain employment. There is provision for financial assistance. The various things which the board may do are set out in the section. It may acquire land, permanently or temporarily; it may construct, adapt and maintain buildings. It may make grants to aid persons to acquire lands or to construct, adapt and maintain buildings. Surely, financial assistance is not necessary for the maintenance of a business which is already working profitably under its own steam. No responsible body of people is going to give grants to the directors or owners of such an undertaking, whether they do or do not apply for them.

At this stage we should decide either to vote against the Bill or to do everything we can to make it a success. There may be special difficulties which industrialists in the West will have to face. We do not know in detail what those difficulties will be. The board will deal with them as they crop up in accordance with the powers given to it in the Bill and what, in the circumstances, it considers proper. It has been suggested that the Bill is going to be difficult to work out in practice. I think it is recognised that there are going to be difficulties which we cannot foresee now. We cannot say with any certainty what the board will do when it meets with some new situation. It will be our duty to act as watchdogs over the activities of the board and to make sure that we will bark loud and long if it does not discharge its functions properly.

I think it is nonsensical for the Deputies opposite to be suggesting that this thing or that thing may happen. Their attitude, in my opinion, is evidence of the attempt that is now being made by the Opposition to discredit this Bill in the eyes of the people, particularly those Deputies who talk about an Indian settlement in the Gaeltacht, and say that a certain area of Mayo, for instance, which they describe as an Indian settlement is going to be cut out of the Bill.

"(1) This Act applies to each of the following areas:—

(a) the congested areas;

(2) the congested areas are

(a) the Counties of Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon, Mayo, Galway and Kerry."

Under that section, as it stands, there is no qualification and there is nothing whatever in it to say that any particular parish, area, district or any part of those counties is to be excluded from the benefits that are provided or from the inducements that are provided under this Bill.

In the course of the debate yesterday on the Bill the Minister said, in reply to Deputy Dr. Browne, as quoted in to-day's Irish Press:—

"Mr. Lemass said that Dr. Browne had raised a specialised problem. He (Mr. Lemass) did not think that that measure would benefit the half-a-dozen parishes which constituted the Fíor-Ghaeltacht. He did not think it desirable that they should try to attract industrial development by private enterprise into these areas, as it could only have an anglicising effect."

He went on:—

"If there was to be industrialisation in these areas it must of necessity be done by State organisations, which must have instructions to subordinate commercial success to the preservation of the language and the Gaelic character of these areas."

The quotation goes on, though there is nothing about this in the Bill:—

"He had discussed the matter with Cómhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge, and they had preferred to see industrial employment developing around the Fíor-Ghaeltacht, so that those who desired to leave it would not wander too far and would still be in contact with the home atmosphere."

We know that some of these people may have to wander 50 miles to a particular factory, maybe to Galway. They would hardly be kept in contact with the home atmosphere because one will hear as much English spoken in the City of Galway as in the City of Dublin, and Deputies know that as well as I do. I have heard as much English spoken in Kilronan as in Tramore. All that I am asking is to do what was right and proper. Is this Bill right? It contains the congested areas of Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon, Mayo, Galway and Kerry and certain districts in County Clare and in County Cork. Is that right or is what the Minister said yesterday right? It is not I who am making the qualification. I did not say it but the Minister did.

I appealed to the Minister before this developed at all. I asked him to clarify the position and he refused to do it. There is nobody against this Bill, except one aspect of it. If it is found necessary and desirable and if there are people who are prepared under the inducements offered in this Bill to put industries within the Fíor-Ghaeltacht and to operate them, they ought not to be prevented from so doing. I want to make my position quite clear on this, because I know I am open to misrepresentation. If the only reason against putting an industry within the Fíor-Ghaeltacht is the fear of anglicisation, then I say that that is not good enough. I would prefer to see people employed and talking English in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht than in Birmingham or even in Galway City. Everybody should realise that, unless we provide employment for the inhabitants of the Fíor-Ghaeltacht, neither they nor the language will be in existence after a short period of time. This is the concern of all of us.

It is not right or proper that Deputy S. Flanagan should say: "Go and vote for or against the Bill, whichever you like, but vote one way or the other." That is not the attitude we should adopt—to vote one way or the other. We ought to have our minds clear on the matter and to know for what we are voting. I have no doubt what way I am going to vote. Whether I get the explanation to which I am entitled or whether I do not, I am still in favour of the Bill. I am still prepared to give it a chance and hope it will succeed. Some Deputies expressed the fear that enough money was not being provided in the £2,000,000. My only fear is, and it is a real fear, that advantage will not be taken to the extent of the £2,000,000.

Mr. Briscoe

Not after Deputy Dillon's speech to-night.

Mr. Morrissey

I say this to Deputy Briscoe, that it takes me all my time to bear up under my own load of sin.

Mr. Briscoe

I am glad you are dissociating yourself from him.

Mr. Morrissey

I am not dissociating myself from anybody. I do not want any bitterness, either inside or outside this House. I do not want to insult anybody but I may tell you and I warn you that the fellow who takes a crack at me will get it back on the double if I am able to give it, and there will be no hard feelings afterwards—and I have taken a fair number of cracks.

As I say, I am rather anxious to see this Bill operating and operating successfully but I think any Deputy in the House, I do not care who he is, who approaches this matter with an open mind will realise that there is no one trying to score points. I only want to clear up the point that there is no qualification in the Bill as to any district within the congested areas where an industry cannot be established in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht but it is in the Minister's speech.

A Deputy

And the Parliamentary Secretary's speech.

Mr. Morrissey

And the Parliamentary Secretary's speech, and apparently it was done at the request of the Cómhdháil.

Mr. Bartley

It is not in my speech.

Mr. Morrissey

I think the Parliamentary Secretary will agree that there is a conflict there. If I am told that the administration of this Bill is going to be directly in accordance with what is laid down here in Section 3, that there is going to be no black areas, no areas inside which the Bill will not operate, in the congested areas, then I am satisfied. But if we did not draw attention at this stage to the Minister's speech yesterday in his reply to Dr. Browne, and if subsequently we raised any point we would be very soon asked: "Why did you not raise that when the Bill was going through the House," and nobody would be more quickly on their feet to put that point than the Deputies on the other side, and they would be perfectly right.

The point is this, and Deputies will have to remember it, that when the Bill is going through the House, that is the time to ask questions, to get your mind clear on it. That is the only time you are in a position to try to extract from the Minister what he really means. Like other Deputies, I do not want to prolong this debate. I have the feeling that if the Minister himself were clear as to where exactly he stood between the Cómhdháil and the Bill he could have resolved this matter two or two and a half hours ago and we would be nearly ready to walk out of the House and wish each other a happy Christmas. Still it is not treating this House fairly and it is not fair to the Bill itself if it has to go through its final stages without a clear explanation as to the difference between the Minister's speech and Section 7 of the Bill, as it stands at the moment.

Mr. Derrig rose.

General Mulcahy

Is the Minister concluding?

Mr. Derrig

Mr. Derrig

I have some authority to speak on this matter, as I was responsible for introducing a scheme for the payment of money to Irish speaking households. That scheme was in operation for a number of years and was one on which scrupulous investigations were made by the inspectors in the Education Office as to whether the households were Irish speaking or not. I am not in the position of Deputy Dillon who speaks from his abysmal ignorance of the matter. I know the parishes that are really Irish speaking and I say they are much smaller in area than might be pretended. It cannot be argued here that the Gaeltacht area consists of large territory or anything resembling even what it was supposed to represent when the Irish Government started.

We have to face the situation that it has shrunk very considerably and the Tánaiste was quite right in pointing to the fact that the number of parishes, which could be described as completely Irish speaking, could very easily be counted. If you pass from the parishes that are completely Irish speaking and include those that are partly Irish speaking, I do not know where you are going to stop. On that basis, the parish of Clontarf could be considered as a Breac-Ghaeltacht area. When I speak of the Gaeltacht, I mean areas where Irish is the living language and is spoken by the people in their ordinary lives. There may be certain areas in Tirconaill where the people have English as well as Irish. But we know that they can speak in Irish as well as in English and probably prefer to speak Irish. I do not agree with Deputy Morrissey that if industries are started in Galway, Dingle, Glenties, or in any other urban or semi-urban area adjoining a Gaeltacht area, the people of the Gaeltacht area are not going to benefit or that the people are going to be deceived by any pretence that if the factory cannot be planted in Carraroe or Rannafast, then the people of those areas are not going to benefit. We know that if a factory is planted within any reasonable distance of the Irish speaking areas, people from the Irish speaking areas can find employment there. We remember when Deputies on the other side told us that Irish speaking people should be deprived of home assistance if they were not prepared to work down in the turf camps in Kildare.

Is it suggested that if a factory is started in Galway, Dingle or some area adjoining the Gaeltacht, the Irish speaking population in these areas are not going to benefit? I think the Tánaiste was quite right in calling attention to the fact that the State, for a very long period of time, has established industries there itself, has carried on industries that were there more or less under State auspices, and has founded new industries in connection with products of the sea as well as of the land. We established, for example, the tomato industry in the Gaeltacht area and if, at any time, a similar scheme which would benefit smallholders in the Gaeltacht comes along, there is no reason why the Government with the example of that scheme before it, should not, if it considers it necessary, establish it there as a State enterprise rather than wait for some person to come along with private capital to make a proposal under this Bill. I see no reason why such a person or body of persons, if they come along with a proposal for the Gaeltacht, should not have these proposals considered.

The Tánaiste referred to the opinions of Cómhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge. Their opinion was that it would be very necessary to safeguard the position of the Irish language by not having large industries suddenly established in those areas. If they were completely English speaking, in a very short time in their view they would completely eliminate the Irish language or at least effectively eliminate it although it might continue to be spoken. In their view there would be a loss in prestige to the language that could not easily be made up. That is a point of view that I think should be considered very carefully. The question then arises as to whether, if a proposal for the establishment of an industry in Carraroe or in Rannafast comes along, it will be possible to secure the necessary personnel as regards management and technical control who will be able to do the work through Irish. The Tánaiste thinks—and it is quite a reasonable assumption on his part— that it will be difficult to secure such people and, therefore, he may be faced with the position that, rather than establish a completely English speaking concern there, he may have to devise some other way of dealing with the situation, by either a State enterprise or through the Gaeltacht industries, or by getting his own Department to deal with it in another way.

It is quite natural that this is a matter upon which it is difficult to give an opinion. I would find it very difficult myself to give an opinion; I should like to know exactly what the particular proposal was. I should like to know before English speakers were introduced or before a completely English speaking industry was set up in Gaeltacht areas, that every possible step had been taken and every possible safeguard made to reduce the loss to the Irish language in the area that would be occasioned by that step. It is naturally a matter upon which there can be a legitimate difference of opinion —whether the question of preserving the language in these districts, if a particular step of that nature would seem to mean its extinction there or on the other hand the question of bringing about an improvement in the economic conditions of the people to the uttermost, should be paramount. One thing is quite certain and that is that when we speak of the Gaeltacht we mean the Irish language. When we speak of the State doing certain things for the Gaeltacht, and when we want to justify a demand that the State and the Government should come along to provide industries for the Gaeltacht, what are we thinking of? Are we thinking merely of the social and economic conditions? Are we not thinking rather of the fact that these areas are the last stronghold of the Irish language and are we not thinking that the measures we are taking for the improvement of social and economic conditions there should be associated, as far as possible, with the great task of preserving the language in those areas?

Mr. O'Higgins

There is only one observation that I should like to make. I do not represent any of the areas specified in the Bill and I have not taken any part so far in the debate but now that the Bill is about to pass, I think I should make some remarks on the development of the debate here to-day. It is correct as Deputy Mulcahy told the House that this Bill has had our support and will have our support because it gives power to the Government or to the board that is being set up, to carry out certain work in the different congested districts. That is clearly set out in the Bill, and for that reason it has our support.

Yesterday, on the Committee Stage also, the Tánaiste gave voice to an expression that the Bill should not under any circumstances extend to the Fíor-Ghaeltacht. The Tánaiste said that yesterday and repeated it to-day in clear terms.

Mr. Lynch

"Should not under any circumstances"?

Mr. O'Higgins

He gave an account to the House of an interview which he had with a deputation from Cómhdháil Náisiúnta and he stated that he accepted their view that the introduction of an industrial effort in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht would cause some anglicisation and should not be started. I think that is a scandalous expression of opinion. In effect, it is saying that the speaking of Irish so far as we in this Oireachtas are concerned is to be a perpetual badge of poverty. It is an approach which, quite understandably, produced protest from Deputy Blowick, Deputy Cafferky and other Deputies. It is, in effect, creating the idea that an Irish Parliament wants to have some form of reservation in which unfortunate persons are to live and to be labelled, "These Irish speaking, do not go near them." That point of view, whether it comes from Cómhdháil Náisiúnta or from the Minister, is something that does not convince me that it contains in it any real hope for the preservation of the language.

We can all see that the introduction of some new business drive into the Gaeltacht, if there is not some care or planning attached to it, may result in the spreading of English. But surely it is not beyond the ability of the Minister and the board to be set up under this Bill to provide against that contingency. We all understood from the Minister's statement here that activity under the Bill will not be extended to the Fíor-Ghaeltacht. Owing to the fact that the Minister for Lands spoke a short time ago, every Deputy appreciates that the Government realise that the Tánaiste made a first-class bloomer and a message was sent out to bring the Minister for Lands into the House to try and undo the damage. If the intervention of the Minister for Lands means that the views expressed by the Tánaiste are not to be carried out, then I am satisfied.

We can at times allow our interest in the cause of the language to obscure our ordinary intelligence when we find Deputies or Ministers stating that we should not do certain things in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht for fear we might cause the people to speak English. That is wrong. Our first concern must surely be for the unfortunate people in these areas who have a desperate struggle to exist, who, with all the neglect of the past, are faced with the results now. It should not be beyond the ability of the Government to achieve their economic betterment without in any way interfering with the language or the Irish culture which flourishes there.

It is unfortunate that the passage of this Bill into law should be marked by that expression of view by the Tánaiste. I hope that the speech of the Minister for Lands and the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary after the Tánaiste's speech indicate that the Tánaiste, perhaps unwittingly, made a mistake and that the Government does not now share his view. It would be very serious if the undoubted benefit which can come from this Bill should be kept far away from the Fíor-Ghaeltacht. It would certainly kill once and for all any chance of the Fíor-Ghaeltacht surviving, because it would undoubtedly mean that any people living in these areas would have no encouragement to continue to live there and to follow the Gaelic way of life.

Mr. Desmond

The speech made by the Tánaiste yesterday and the further contributions from the Parliamentary Secretary to-day, coupled with the criticism from the other side of the House, seem to put us in a more complicated position than we were in before the Bill was introduced. I realise that what the Tánaiste said was very complicated. Having listened to the contribution of the Parliamentary Secretary to-day, I must say that it added to the complication. Mistakes may have been made and words may have been spoken which gave the impression that there is a danger of industry not being established in the particular parishes mentioned as being truly Gaelic.

From what I heard, I do not believe that the Tánaiste meant that there would not be industries established there. I gathered from his statement that the industries there would probably be established by another board or under another Bill. I may be wrong.

Mr. Briscoe

You are quite right.

Mr. Desmond

That is the impression I got. But when the Tánaiste made that statement, Opposition members who complained about that statement had an opportunity, and so had the members of the Government Party, including Deputy Briscoe, of putting that right. They had a chance last night of seeing that it would not be necessary to introduce another Bill in order to give to those parishes in the Gaeltacht the advantages which are being offered to the others. I condemn the attitude taken both by the members of the Government and the Opposition Parties who had an opportunity last night to vote for an amendment which would give these advantages to the people in the Gaeltacht and the six parishes which have been mentioned.

This Bill could have been made more perfect last night if Deputies were farseeing enough to realise that. Even, the Tánaiste has admitted—it may be unwittingly, but it is quite clear from his statement—that the danger is that in these parishes about which we have heard so much to-day there may not be sufficient local capital to start industries. The Minister pointed out that it might be disadvantageous to have outsiders coming in in case those outsiders might bring with them technicians or employees who would not be Irish speakers with the result that the Saxon tongue might creep in. The Minister has openly admitted that the only hope is to provide industries by some other means in these areas.

Time has now been wasted in bringing this Bill to a conclusion. Deputies had a chance last night but in their narrow-minded, conservative way they failed to realise they had that chance. It was a chance which would have helped the people in the Gaeltacht so far as provision could be made for State enterprises which the Minister openly admitted would probably be the only means of providing employment in these areas. The opportunity was there last night. Deputies failed to grasp it. Let them now take the responsibility.

Mr. Donnellan

There is a very bad fog outside but the fog inside is nearly as bad. Knowing the Fíor-Ghaeltacht very well I ask myself will it ever be possible to set up industries there through private enterprise or otherwise? I believe none will ever be set up through private enterprise. I do not agree with the Minister that there are only five or six parishes which are purely Irish speaking. I know several areas that are not in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht at all where Irish is the spoken language of the people.

I hope to see some Bill introduced under which something will be done specially for the people in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht areas. I hope the Government and the Minister have something better than this Bill in mind. The view seems to be that this Bill will not do any good in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht areas. Private enterprise will be useless. How long must the people in these areas wait?

As far as I am concerned, if our Irish speakers are to be deprived of a way of living until such time as something can be done I would prefer to see them at work and speaking English rather than idle and on the dole speaking Irish. I am looking to the Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Bartley, to do something for Galway City. I hope there will be some developments there into which the people along the seaboard, Spiddal and Carraroe will be taken. Even though English is spoken there, there is quite a lot of Irish spoken too and I do not agree with Deputy Morrissey on that. If industries are started in Galway I hope the people in the outlying areas will get a preference in the matter of employment. It would be better to see them in Galway City than returning to Birmingham. Then, we hear the doleful tale of the Taoiseach about their conditions there.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Government (Mr. Lynch)

No matter what may be said about this Bill when it becomes law, it will inevitably be suggested that the Government has beaten a hasty retreat in relation to the Minister's remarks as reported in the Irish Press and repeated by the Minister here to-day. I heard what the Minister said last night. I subsequently heard it read no less than three times. The Minister felt that this Bill would not prove sufficiently attractive to help the Fíor-Ghaeltacht areas and, if the attractions were not sufficient, some more direct action would have to be taken by the Government. He also reiterated the opinion expressed to him by Cómhdháil Náisiúnta, with which he said he agreed, that the introduction of large scale industry into the Gaeltacht might have an anglicising effect. I am by no means in complete agreement with that opinion.

The Bill is a very simple Bill. It is a clear Bill. The areas to which its scope will extend are clearly defined in Section 3.

The most relevant speech made on the Fifth Stage of the Bill was the two-line speech contributed by Deputy General Mulcahy. It is clear that this Bill does not exclude the Gaeltacht areas. There is no suggestion in the Bill to exclude those areas.

The operation of the Bill will be entrusted to a board called Foras Tionscal. Irrespective of any impression any of us may have here about the provisions of the Bill, Foras Tionscal will operate the Bill according as they interpret it when they see it in print before them as an Act.

Anybody who has any experience of practising in the courts knows that it will serve no useful purpose for a legal practitioner to tell a judge that he was in the Dáil the night the Bill was passed and he heard the Minister or someone else say such and such a thing. A judge can only administer the law as he sees it before him. Foras Tionscal will administer this Bill as they see it before them in relation to the different districts laid down under Section 3.

In my capacity as Parliamentary Secretary to the Government I am charged with a task of the co-ordination and initiation of schemes designed to develop the Gaeltacht economically and otherwise. A number of people have come to me with industrial proposals. They have asked me where I thought they should establish their industries. I took the precaution in a few cases of asking them if they had any particular area in mind. Before ever this Bill was passed in one particular instance I suggested to some industrialists in Dublin who were anxious to set up in Donegal that they should take a look at the Gaeltacht areas there—Rannafast, the Rosses, Gweedore and Glencolumbcille. I told them that in these areas they would find a standard of cleanliness and industry amongst the people that would augur well for the success of any industry they would set up. I do not know to what extent they have pursued that particular suggestion.

In another case a well-known industrial concern in Dublin wrote to me informing me of their intention of setting up in some area 20 miles west of Galway which must of necessity be a Gaeltacht area. From my point of view, I have no fears whatever with regard to the preservation of the language if a certain amount of industrial expansion is effected. Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge have expressed these fears in the interview they had with the Tánaiste and in the publication they issued when they saw the text of this Bill. I believe their point of view is worthy of consideration and of respect because those people are appointed to whatever positions they hold in Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge because of their intensive knowledge of Gaeltacht conditions and of the people there and particularly with regard to their knowledge of how the language might be preserved.

It is a point of view worthy of consideration, that, should industries be set up in the heart of the Fíor-Ghaeltacht areas, there is a danger to the language in so far as that those setting up the industries might tend to spread the use of the English language and so anglicise those areas. Personally, I believe that in these areas the language would be strong enough to withstand any anglicising effect that the type of industry that would be introduced under this Bill in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht areas would have.

I do not want to delay the House except to refer to the remarks which were made by some speakers on the other side when they suggested that the Government, in the administration of this Bill, will want to black out the Gaeltacht areas and create in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht conditions like those under which the Indians lived in North America over a number of years—in reservations—or, as someone else suggested, as prisoners of war live, confined behind barbed wire. There is no truth whatever in suggestions of that kind. Personally, so far as I am charged with the administration of the office which I now hold, it will be my intention to bring a way of life to the residents of the Fíor-Ghaeltacht area as attractive as that enjoyed by any of our other citizens. I hope that I will endeavour to ensure that they will be given the same amenities with regard to the provision of electricity, roads and water supplies as the people in the areas outside the Fíor-Ghaeltacht enjoy, and in no way to try and create out of the residents of the Fíor-Ghaeltacht areas a kind of museum show pieces. I do not believe that is the best way in which we can preserve the language. I believe what some Deputy said here to-night, that to create or maintain a condition of poverty amongst the residents of the Fíor-Ghaeltacht areas is the surest possible way to kill the language.

I am sincerely convinced of this, that unless these people get a decent way of living within the confines of their own Fíor-Ghaeltacht areas they will be justified in abandoning those areas, and if they forget the language, as a result of that, it will not be their fault. I do not want to follow many of the other speakers in the course which they have set for themselves except to say to Deputy Dillon that the fact that this Bill immediately followed the introduction of the Estimate for Oifig na Gaeltachta agus gCeanntar gCúng, was in no way connected with any political tactics whatever. The Estimate for the office of which I am in charge was placed on the Order Paper just about the same time as the Supplies and Services Bill. That Estimate would have been discussed weeks in advance of the time it was discussed were it not for the fact that the Supplies and Services Bill took such an inordinately long time. Deputy Dillon suggested that he was told during his contribution to the debate on the Estimate that he was to lay off his criticism of the Estimate since the Bill was likely to follow soon.

There was no such impression conveyed to Deputy Dillon. He was told, in his references to the Undeveloped Areas Bill, while discussing the Estimate for my office, that he was being irrelevant and could use any remarks that he had to make in the course of the debate on the Undeveloped Areas Bill. I want to deny categorically that there was any suggestion whatever of trying to create that impression in the House, that since my office was alleged by some Deputies to be primarily concerned with the Gaeltacht areas, this Bill which was immediately to follow to which reference was made in the course of the debate on the Estimate, was designed primarily to help the Fíor-Ghaeltacht areas. There is nothing further from the truth. Deputy Dillon knows very well that by its very title—Oifig na Gaeltachta agus na gCeanntar gCung—the area within the purview of my office not only embraces the Fíor-Ghaeltacht but the Breac-Ghaeltacht and the congested areas. So this Bill also by its Title—the Undeveloped Areas Bill as defined in Section 3—embraces Fíor-Ghaeltacht as well as Breac-Ghaeltacht.

I want to assure any Deputy who may have any feeling that there is going to be a ring drawn around the Fíor-Ghaeltacht districts in order to exclude the possibility of any industrialist or potential industrialist coming into those areas to set up worthwhile industries to create employment such will not be the case. So far as I can ensure it side by side with the interests of the language the way of life of Gaeltacht residents will be advanced by the setting up of those industries. I will use all my endeavours to see that such industries will be set up and means provided for giving employment to the Fíor-Ghaeltacht residents.

I do not want to delay the House longer except to repeat that this Bill is a start. As Deputy Dr. ffrench-O'Carroll has described it, it is a pilot Bill. The Tánaiste has made no extravagant claims for it. He has said that he hopes it will achieve a certain measure of success. If it does not then we will have to consider some other means of bringing about the conditions which he hopes this Bill will create. I want to say to the House, now that the Bill is about to pass, let us give it a trial and if it fails to succeed after a number of years then will be the time to criticise it. Then will be the time, whatever Government is in power, to see what other measures can be introduced to try to solve the problems that this Bill has been introduced to try to solve in present conditions.

Question put and agreed to.

General Mulcahy

There is only one small point. I would like to know whether it has been deliberately decided that the name of this organisation will be An Foras Tionscal? I am wondering whether the word "Foras" is being deliberately accepted, or whether it should not be Forás?

Mr. Lemass

I will take advice on that.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht - Thursday, 13 Dec 1951

Undeveloped Areas Bill, 1951—Fourth and Fifth Stages.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 13 Dec 1951