I move:—
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £21,000 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1953, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, including certain Services administered by that Office, and for payment of certain Subsidies and Sundry Grants-in-Aid.
On this Supplementary Estimate I would like to make a short explanatory statement. I think it is desirable that I should explain briefly the purposes of this Supplementary Estimate, which is intended to provide some additional funds for Mianraí Teoranta to carry on the coal mining undertaking at Slievardagh. When the undertaking there was reorganised in 1947 the legislation passed fixed a limit of £50,000 to the amount that could be advanced to Mianraí Teoranta for the purposes of that undertaking. I said then that the company was only remaining in the coal-mining business because of accidental circumstances and that it would get for the development of the Ballingarry coal deposits a capital sum of £50,000 and no more. I endeavoured to make clear what was our then intention, that if within a reasonable time and within the limit of that sum the company could not get that undertaking on to a paying basis, the workings there would be abandoned. In fact, as Deputies opposite will recollect, the company was unable to get the undertaking on to a paying basis within the limit of that sum and in October, 1949, the Minister for Industry and Commerce in the previous Government asked the House to vote a supplementtary sum of £38,000 to maintain the undertaking until it reached a profitearning stage.
When I resumed office as Minister for Industry and Commerce, I met the board of the undertaking in August of last year. They told me they hoped to achieve production of 500 tons per week by the end of last year, and stated that, with production running at that level, they would be making a profit. Subsequently, the company ran into some difficulty in the working of the seam, and in March of this year they told me they had made a loss on the first quarter of the year, but that they had reason to believe that their production would increase and that they would be making a profit of about £200 a week later in the year. Later in the year they asked for legislation to increase the limit of advances to them, but I told them that, in view of the Exchequer difficulties and their expectation, that they would be making a profit later in the year, I could not agree to give them any additional money, urging that the additional capital expenditure which they believed to be justifiable should be met at a later stage out of the profits when earned. On the 9th of this month, however, the company reported that their production had averaged less than the 500 tons per week which would have put them in a line ball position and that, of the production realised, a higher proportion than anticipated had been in the form of duff which earns a lower price than the ordinary size coal. They pointed out to me that they would require money between this and the end of the year if production was to be maintained, that they had reached the limit of accommodation which their bankers were prepared to give them, and, with their present production running at a loss and some difficulty in disposing of the coal, they were in need of additional cash.
In view of the pending adjournment of the Dáil it was decided, therefore, to ask the House for a supplementary sum. That supplementary sum will have to be, as the Estimate indicates, confirmed by legislation later in the year. The sum which it is proposed to vote, £21,000, is required to meet certain outstanding debts of the company, to meet some essential capital expenditure and possibly losses on working between this and the end of the year.
In introducing the Supplementary Estimate, I think I should make it clear that the Government has not come to any decision regarding the future of this undertaking. We realise, in the rather exceptional conditions prevailing, that it would be unwise to take a hasty decision, but whether, in fact, the Government would be prepared to ask the Dáil to vote still more money after the conclusion of the year if the undertaking should still be losing money at that stage, is a matter upon which I do not want to make comment now. I may say that during the course of the year every effort was made to dispose of this property, but because I was not satisfied as to the form the advertisement took, which produced certain offers that were not attractive or at least offers that involved certain difficulties, I directed that the whole property should be readvertised and offered for sale rather than that portions of it should be offered separately. Whether that second advertisement will produce a satisfactory offer for the undertaking I cannot say. The effect of this Supplementary Estimate is really to postpone a decision on the future of the undertaking.
