Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 31 Mar 1955

Vol. 149 No. 8

Committee on Finance. - Vote 50—Industry and Commerce (Resumed).

Mr. Casey

When progress was reported, I was referring generally to the financial position of C.I.E. with particular reference to the statement made by the Minister in moving the Estimate in which he outlined the prospects of the board of C.I.E. for the next five or six or seven years. The Minister stated that the present financial trend of C.I.E. seemed to indicate to him that in a very few years the board of C.I.E. would be able to meet out of its own resources all the normal charges, other than interest, on transport stock and that in yet a few years after that, the board would find itself in a completely solvent state.

I think that that situation is very encouraging and very refreshing particularly to those of us who had not visualised that happy state of affairs some five or six years ago. An examination of the statement of accounts of the board over the past three years shows us, indeed, that there is a substantial improvement. In 1952, C.I.E. registered a loss of £2,091,000. This was improved somewhat in 1953 when the loss was recorded as £2,017,000 and in the figures in the latest balance sheet available to us, for the year ending 31st March, 1954, that loss is recorded as £1,021,000. But, actually, those of us who are rather close to that industry and who take an interest in its affairs seem to think that the position is even rosier than one might gather from an examination of the net losses recorded over those years.

I leave aside, for the moment, the amount put down as depreciation. In passing, I may say that over the past three years there have been rather startling variations in the amount allowed for depreciation in the accounts of C.I.E. I am not suggesting that depreciation is not properly chargeable against revenue, but leaving it aside in an effort to find out how the operating costs are going for the board, the position is something like this. Outside depreciation in 1952, there was a loss of £461,000, an operating loss. The position improved somewhat in 1953 when the operating loss was reduced down to £42,700, and in the year ending March, 1954, for the first time, the board of C.I.E. had an operating surplus of £1,095,000 and they did that in a year when their salaries and wages bill was increased by £339,000.

It is evident from these figures, that if the figures for depreciation had remained more or less uniform, the real operating improvement for the year ending March, 1954, as against the previous year was an amount of £1,140,000. I am simply referring to this to have it on record that the improvement that is being shown by C.I.E. in operating the transport system of this country is even rosier than the Minister indicated and rosier than a superficial glance at the statements of accounts of C.I.E. would seem to indicate.

I am personally very confident that when we get the next statement of accounts and annual report from C.I.E., the position will be much better than we had hoped. In passing, I want to say that the financial year for C.I.E. is ending to-day, the 31st March, and I do hope we will not have to wait 11 months for the statement of accounts and annual report as we had to do last year. The annual report and statement of accounts by the board of C.I.E. for the year ending 31st March last year was not published or made available to us until February, 1955. I do not know the cause of that but it is something that would not be tolerated in private enterprise. I see no reason at all why we have to wait for 11 months to get this report and statement of account from C.I.E. I hope the Minister will take steps to make available to this House the financial statement of the board for this year at the earliest possible moment.

Referring to the financial prospects of C.I.E., they do seem to be rosy, and in view of that I hope the Minister will take some steps to see that the board will live up to the responsibilities which it has not faced in the past. It gave the excuse of financial embarrassment to retired members of the wages grade staff of that concern when these people went along and sought some alleviation of the utter distress under which they were labouring. There are 1,800 superannuated members of the wages grade staff of the C.I.E. and almost 800 of them—between 750 and 800—on a pension of 6/- a week. These are people who served on the railway service of C.I.E. and its predecessors for some 40 or 50 years. I know personal friends of my own who have put down 50 years' service on the railways and who are now on a pension of 6/- a week. The excuse always made to them was that the financial state of the board did not permit any advance on the scales operating at the moment. The indications now are that the financial state of the board is improving, and I hope the board will realise its obligations to these people and that this problem of their pensions will be grappled with straight away.

I also have to refer to what other Cork Deputies said about Cork bus station. Most people in this House probably were not in the Cork bus station at all. To my mind it is just a large barn. I have seen barns and outhouses on good farms far and away better than the Cork bus station. The Lord Mayor of Cork, Deputy McGrath, said he spent an hour or two there last summer—I would advise him to stay out of it this year unless he wants to put us to the trouble of having a by-election in Cork. The station there is totally inadequate for the citizens of Cork and for visitors to the city. One cannot keep out of draughts; there is no proper waiting room, and when your bus eventually comes you have to dash out through the rain to get it. It is a hopeless place and quite unsuitable as a bus depot in a city like Cork.

I hope the chairman of the board of C.I.E. will change his attitude from what it is when he says: "You have too much shouting about it anyway." We are going to continue shouting until we get a proper bus station. We do not want a Store Street, or shops or cinemas. We want only a comfortable bus station, where people will be able to go and have the ordinary facilities that they would expect. That is all we want and that is what we are entitled to get, and what we are going to harp on until we get it.

Deputy Lynch of Waterford referred to the difficulty of getting cheap transport made available to citizens of Waterford who want to get to Tramore. We are aware that there are difficulties to a greater extent in Cork. The main seaside resort, Youghal, is 30 miles from the city. The position is at the moment that, with current fares, the ordinary family man finds it difficult to take his wife and children on excursions during the summer. If it costs the family man from £1 to 25/-on a Sunday, he is not going to go very often. I would agree with the suggestion of Deputy Lynch that cheap fares should be made available in the larger centres like Cork, in the summer months, so as to give the ordinary man and his family an opportunity of spending a day at the seaside. The position is that, if an ordinary man wishes to take his family away to the seaside on a Sunday in August, he just cannot do it. Youghal is the only seaside resort near Cork, or if you like, Crosshaven, but there is only a bus service available there, and he cannot do it on the charges prevailing at the moment.

I do not want to bore the House any further by speaking of Cork, but I think the Minister realises the need for an airport adjacent to it. It was first mooted, I believe, in 1939, and we seem to be no nearer to an airport than we were then. Deputy McGrath referred to it the other night, and he appeared to be at some pains to try to give the impression that the present Minister for Industry and Commerce was at fault. It is all humbug to make such a suggestion, because Deputy McGrath knows as well as I do, that Cork has been shabbily treated by every Government since the thing was first mooted. Some attention has been given to Cork, but I certainly think that Deputy McGrath should not have come here and endeavoured to insinuate that the Minister, who has only been in office for the past nine months, is the culprit of the whole piece.

I hope that the Minister will give the matter prompt attention, and that he will take effective action, when there is a local company available, which is prepared to go a long way towards setting up an airport. We do not want the Government to sink £1,000,000 to provide something that cannot properly be supplied by private enterprise. I hope that the Minister will take into account the local finances available, that he will make a prompt decision, and let the people who have the money available know exactly where they stand.

I do not want to refer at length to the oil refinery except to say that Cork, as many other places, seeks to have it established there. In his statement the Minister pointed out that imports of oil were costing something like £12,500,000 per annum, and that the other by-products, tar and bitumen, were costing almost £1,000,000. Taking these figures, I think that a refinery is desirable. Deputy MacCarthy will agree with me that there is such merit in our case that we do not have to press it too hard.

I was very pleased to note that the Minister, in his statement, referred to the steps he was taking to impose a check on the dumping of low-priced goods from the Far East into this country. There are woollen and worsted mills in Cork, and I am sure that industrialists and employees will welcome generally the words of the Minister in saying that he was prepared to see that all reasonable steps would be taken to ensure that low-priced goods from the Far East would not be dumped into this country to the detriment of our woollen and worsted mills. I think it can be said that, in fair competition, our industries are in no way inferior to competing industries in this country, or outside it. We cannot hope to compete fairly with low-priced goods in this country from the Far East, and I am glad to see that the Minister is taking all necessary steps to avoid such a situation.

The Factories Bill passed its Report Stage to-day and will become law in a very short time. It appears to me that the only large class of workers who are still unprotected are the office workers. The Minister made reference to them also in his opening remarks. He said he proposed to do something about them. I want to impress upon him the urgency of having some protective legislation for office workers. I think all of us had experience of people working in places that were called offices and which were completely unhealthy and unhygienic. I myself worked in such offices and I know what I am talking about. I think that very many of the T.B. cases would not have arisen were it not for the fact that these people were compelled to spend seven or eight hours per day in these dumps called offices. I do not mind saying also that private firms and private individuals are not the greatest offenders in this respect. We had some of our national concerns providing office accommodation that was simply an insult to the people who were accommodated in them.

The Minister indicated—and it was a very welcome announcement—that he intends to amend the Holidays Employment Act. I am only sorry that he had not an opportunity of doing so before now. It appears that we will now have another Easter in which Good Friday will not be a Bank Holiday. I think it is a shocking reflection on a Christian country and Catholic country that Good Friday cannot be observed in the way all of us would like it to be observed. As a matter of fact, the situation at the moment leads to hypocrisy of the highest order.

I know of firms and factories which in a fit of religious fervour close their concerns on Good Friday and everybody says they are very good Catholic firms. The fact is, of course, that they do not pay their employees for that day. They close the factory but they do not pay their employees for the day they lock the doors against them. I do not see anything particularly religious in such an action. I know of other places where the doors are closed and the shutters put up but work goes on as usual behind the closed doors. I am very sorry to see that apparently we will have to pass through another Easter in which this will happen. I know that when the Bill comes to be amended the Minister will deal with this particular problem and make Good Friday a bank holiday.

Deputy Jack Lynch referred to the Cork bakery strike—it would be more correct to term it a lock-out—which has lasted for the past 16 or 17 weeks. I do not know what object Deputy Lynch had in mind when he raised the matter here, but I am sure he did it in all good faith. I think it is wrong to give the employees or the employers the impression that something is being done about it here. Deputy Lynch knows that the Minister can do nothing about the situation that exists in Cork at the moment. I think it is wrong to raise hopes in the minds of people who have gone through a lot of hardship during the past 16 or 17 weeks by saying that the matter was raised in the Dáil. I am quite sure that Deputy Lynch did not do that to raise false hopes. The position is that the Minister for Industry and Commerce cannot deal with the situation that exists in Cork at the moment.

I want to say that the general impression I get in the country is that the Minister for Industry and Commerce is doing a real good job. There is a feeling of security and stability amongst industrialists and amongst workers generally. I do not blame the Opposition at all for striving to indicate that all is not well. That is their particular job, but if a neutral person examined the situation he would come to the conclusion that things are looking bright, that there is still much work to be done and that in the present Minister for Industry and Commerce we have a man who is prepared to tackle problems as they arise. Before this Government goes out of office the position will generally be much better than it was before they came in.

Mr. MacCarthy

The fact that most of the sources of our economic and mineral wealth are still underdeveloped and, in many instances, lying dormant and neglected, is one which could appropriately be utilised to open a debate on the Estimate for the Minister for Industry and Commerce. Perhaps, it is due to the operation of democracy in a general way that things are so. If you had a dictatorship you could make people do this, that and the other thing. But we prefer things to move normally, though perhaps faster and to better effect. The one great fault that I have to find with the operation of democracy and a change of Government is that very often a change of Government means a change of policy and a change of plan or in certain programmes that have gone so far that the change will do great damage to our national economy generally. We had examples in the past, no doubt, but there is no use in reiterating these things now if we are to serve any purpose. Discussion must be directed towards the problems facing us and while certain things may be considered platitudes, that should not divert our minds from discussing remedies for very old problems.

We are mainly dependent in this country on what is in the soil and what it produces but we must not neglect the fact—very many members from all sides of the House made reference to it —that our mineral wealth in particular has not been sufficiently explored. Certainly it has been developed in a very niggardly way. Let us go back over surveys made in this country. I think the Lewis survey was made about 100 years ago. Mines of copper, lead and coal were operated at that particular period and good employment was given. Lead in particular was mined in the constituency I now represent at a place near Crosshaven mentioned by Deputy Casey, Ringabella. The lead mines there employed 400 people but the mines were abandoned about the time of the famine. I do not know if anybody has even taken an interest since in whether such a mine was there or whether the mine could be worked in an economic way.

You have the copper mines at Allihies in West Cork. They were closed owing to some labour or other trouble. Nobody ever worried about them. Places like Silvermines in the County Tipperary did not get their names without good reason. The topography of the places, the geological surveys and the history of past events show us that there are mineral resources in this country that have not got the attention that would be appropriate when we consider our national needs.

These various sources of wealth would need to be examined very minutely because we know that during Grattan's Parliament this country made such progress that the people representing it had to be bribed to get rid of their own Parliament. We now have our own Parliament and we should undo much of the bad work that was done during the previous 120 years from the passing of the Act of Union.

There is a section of the Department of Industry and Commerce which looks after these matters but I do not think their personnel is sufficiently wide or their resources sufficiently adequate to deal with the situation. When we were under the control of another Government, we know that they bought over very many of our industries, especially if they interfered with theirs. Then they closed them down and they were left forgotten and neglected. The operations which the Minister told us would be continued in Wicklow should be extended. If some development is made every year and if we get the result, then we will know that every effort is being made to use whatever mineral wealth or deposits may be there to our national advantage.

Apart from the question of supplying our own needs, the matter of developing our export market is very much under consideration by the Minister and his Department as it was during the term of office of his predecessor. We can see that it is mainly in specialised things—things that are characteristically Irish—that most progress is likely to be made. Not alone should we provide for the openings which arise for the supply of the day to day commodities which we produce here in such fine quality for all our needs but we should remember the specialised markets available which can be developed by those who can put more money into things of that kind which would open up for us a new field of effort and enterprise at home.

As Deputy Seán Casey has said, we have to protect our native industries and to encourage new ones. Comment has been made that more has not been done for the outlying districts. Those establishing industries do not want to go there and it would take more than an effort from the Minister to get them to do so. Unless local people are interested and show initiative, the Department is unlikely to be able to do anything under existing laws and regulations. The sad point for the people concerned is that those who most need money and industry are so depressed locally that they have neither the money nor the initiative. Take, for example, a town like Kinsale, which was brought to the notice of the Minister and which is somewhat isolated from the general course of transport and effort. An industry would keep the people there occupied and I would suggest to the Minister that, by order or regulation, if at all possible, he extend the operation of the Undeveloped Areas Act to that town. If he goes in there at present, he will find that two-thirds of the men are in England and the women are at home—just because they have no local industry.

Another point is that of transport. Instead of considering a liner for world passenger traffic, if a coastal trade were developed, the ships of medium size would come into these ports and these ships would be built in our own dockyards and subsequently they could be repaired there. Apart from opening up trade in some of the neglected towns and outlying ports around our coast, it would give some encouragement to the people to see a ship with coal or some other commodity coming in and discharging in their own ports. I would ask the Minister to get Irish Shipping, Ltd., to examine that side of the problem and to do something about it. Many ports around our coasts, and many of the towns near them, give opportunities for trade which might be developed with advantage locally.

We are all glad to see C.I.E. developing as it has done over the past few years. We are glad that the modernisation of transport is bringing back to the railway traffic that it was rapidly losing and that people are going in for rail travel more than they were some years ago. C.I.E. can run these passenger trains now in small units, as the Minister knows, but at the present moment they are running all these towards the cities so that people can get to a city and back the same day. There are numbers of country towns which in my young days and the days of the Minister depended largely on the local rural community coming in on market days. There is no case now where, instead of going to the cities, you can go into these towns by rail instead and get back by rail on the same day. That applies to my constituency and I am sure it applies elsewhere also.

Take the town of Bandon—from my native place you could go in there and do your marketing and come back by train. At present, if you want to travel by train you must go to Cork 15 miles away and you can get back the same evening. There are no buses, as the nearby road is not sufficiently wide to carry them. These are local problems, but I am sure such problems apply generally around the country. The Minister should call the attention of C.I.E. to this point, so that in their transport regulations they will not neglect the services to market towns.

Deputy Esmonde said to-day that buses and trains were running parallel and at the same hours. That is so. On that main road to Bandon—about three miles away—there is an hourly service of buses in each direction, whilst the railway is neglected. There would not be so much wear and tear on the roads if there were a few diesel trains in each direction to allow people to get to Bandon, Clonakilty, Skibbereen, Bantry and other towns and get back the same day. One may say you would not get a big crowd from Cork going out there, but the people going to each of these market towns would board a train at the local station and even though the train may not be filled all the way it would become a paying service in that way.

In regard to the much discussed question of Cork Airport, I am sure the Minister will consider this point irrespective of who is for and who is against it. I am certain he will consider it on its merits. Some local people started an improvised airfield— it cannot be called an airport, as there is no building there and it is not sufficiently developed—where chartered planes land now and again in favourable weather. The people who started it deserve every credit for their enterprise and, in the development of the new airport, that area might be taken in; I do not know, I have no skilled knowledge on that point. There was a meteorological survey there lasting over three years and the people skilled in these matters will ultimately decide on the location of the airport, as I am sure the Minister is satisfied that a city with a population of about 130,000 in these days needs such a port. If an airport is put there, the desire is that it should be a modern one.

In these days no one could expect passengers to come across-Channel or from distant lands—or even our own people—to go into second-class small aircraft. They are not going to risk that or do it. A few adventurous people may do it. However, if you are going to have a scheduled service, that service must be run with modern planes of good size and quality and they must take off from a good airport. We all know that more disasters have occurred in the taking-off and the landing of aircraft than occur in flight except where there is a fog or something like that and the aircraft strikes a mountain. The important things are the starting and the landing. It is there that most of the accidents occur and one or two serious accidents would, as everybody knows, blight forever the prospects of an airport becoming anyway popular.

Sometimes we have fog at Dublin and at Shannon. If there were a third airport at Cork—an airport of modern size and quality—it would provide another alternative for landing whereas, at present, aircraft must in such circumstances overfly our airports and our country and go on to Prestwick, London or elsewhere. I know the men who put up the original enterprise and I am willing to give them all the credit for it. If they are incorporated in this, well and good. They would serve my purpose quite well provided we get a modern airport. What is the use of saying that we will have a scheduled air service by a company operating from Wales? Aer Lingus having got control of our services here, why should we start off in that way now with companies over which we have no control whatsoever except that their planes would be allowed to fly from and to land in Cork?

Do we not remember what happened in other such cases? Did C.I.E.—in order to give their workers good conditions, to give the public good service, and so forth—not have to buy out a whole lot of these private enterprises? Did the E.S.B., when it started, not buy out the plants that were in many of the towns of this country and close them down? Are we now to have a situation where we will have the same thing again—a situation where two, three or perhaps four charter companies on a scheduled service will use Cork airport and, when development comes, Aer Lingus will have to compensate them in order to take over the service themselves? Surely we must consider these things from the practical point of view. I am sure the Minister will do so. I am sure that, regardless of what Party or what company or what people are for or against the project, the matter will be decided entirely on its merits, on what the country needs and on what the city near it requires.

I would point out to the Minister that this airport is only five miles from the City of Cork. We have a good many unemployed there. We talk a lot about rising prices, the cost of commodities, and so forth. To my mind, the first essential is to provide the worker with the means of purchasing the commodities. It is very little good to a worker to learn that the price of butter has been reduced 3d. or 4d. a lb. if he has nothing but the dole. However, if he had £5, £6 or £7 a week working out there he would be able to go home to his family as a working man rather than as a man who has no work and no opportunity of finding it and has nothing to keep him and his family but the dole. Even if £1,000,000 were spent on the project, I submit that that money would be circulated to the general benefit of the community. Most of the work is semi-skilled in nature and the ordinary men would be employed on it.

The money these men would earn would be spent on the purchase of essential commodities and it would thus circulate through the shops to different parts of the country, to the general benefit of the community. Furthermore, our country would have what other small nations now have, that is, an alternative airport within easy distance of the city. The men with hackney cars and the buses would do more business. The people would get the service and could be linked up with the existing airports at Shannon and Dublin if they wanted to go further afield. All that would help to provide against local unemployment.

We often hear talk about industries and about people looking for industries. I would direct the attention of the Minister to this point. I happen to be Chairman of Cork County Library Committee. For the past five years we have been trying to get books that are out of circulation rebound but without success. We might get 1,000 done in a year. At the moment, we have 15,000 books that cannot be put into circulation because we cannot get people in Ireland to bind them. The Eagle Company started about two years ago. They do about 2,000 books a year for us but that does not represent a fifth of what we require. We got an offer from Scotland to rebind the whole 15,000 books and send them back to us in four months, carriage paid each way, and they offered to do it at a lower figure than we could get it done elsewhere. People are looking for industries. There is one. This matter became public property when, eventually, we published it. Then we found that there are bookbinders in Dublin and elsewhere who have been idle for years. That is an example of a small industry which needs very little capital. It might need a paper cutter and a press of some kind and a few other commodities and one or two skilled men. Nevertheless, we have these things going to waste, so to speak, and nobody has the initiative to take them up, for some reason or another.

I was sorry to see the other day that the Minister for Agriculture stated that the flight from the land was in many ways hypercritical. If we had local industries in the towns they would attract people and give employment to the surplus population on the land. No doubt this is really not a matter for the Minister's Department and perhaps I should not go into it now but I feel I should refer to the surplus on the land. The land is slow. They put in crops in the spring and wait until the autumn to harvest them. Then they have to pay the man from whom they bought the seed, and so forth. The young man of to-day wants to handle a certain amount of ready money. Really, the only way he can get ready money is by the establishment of subsidiary industries in the various towns throughout the country. We should all help and give our ideas: we should stimulate local initiative. In that way, we might perhaps help the Minister and his Department. The one thing that I feel sore about sometimes is the change of policy, the delay in policy, and so forth. When Governments change, these fundamental things should be carried on and should remain the same.

I want to ask the Minister some questions about the E.S.B. on topics which are 100 per cent. controversial. I appeal to the Minister to see to it that if they have big built-up areas, as they have—these areas have extended considerably in recent years and are almost like new townships—it should balance against what they are doing in the rural areas and that they should not cut out people in remote rural districts who are living in little pockets of land just because it is uneconomic to connect them. The people in those remote districts need the electricity just as much as the people elsewhere and, if we are going to stop the flight from the land, will it not be done by giving these people in the remote districts the amenities which other people enjoy?

I appeal to the Minister to ensure that there will be no falling down in that regard and that these pockets will not be left without being linked up. I want to mention also the charges—charges which the people cannot afford to pay. As I say, these things should be balanced by the facility with which the E.S.B. can serve numerous houses in the townships and their environments. The advantage they get in that way should, in part, be devoted towards subsidising from their own funds the linking up of the system in the more remote areas.

I do not think I should delay the House by saying anything more at this stage. The Minister will pick out from the discussion the things he considers most practicable and most easily put into effect. In that way we all hope that progress will be made, that the country will get from industry the national wealth which will improve employment and that the people will get the services they urgently need.

Mr. Coburn

Deputy Esmonde summed up the situation very well when he complimented the Minister on the exhaustive report he gave when he presented the Estimate to the House. The Minister covered a very wide field and left very little out. It is very important that new industries should be established but it is more important still that existing industries should be maintained and encouraged.

I am deeply interested in the railway industry and would like to get an assurance from the Minister that no danger will threaten the relative prosperity of the Dundalk railway works. I was glad to hear a Deputy on the opposite side of the House refer to this point. He also asked the Minister for an assurance to that effect.

With the present dieselisation of the railway system, it is only natural that great economies will be effected on the part of the management but there is a danger attached to these economies. The constant employment of the employees may be jeopardised. As an exrailway employee and as a Dundalk man I would impress upon the Minister the necessity of securing that the prosperity of the railway works will not be endangered. I am sure everyone appreciates the great interest the Minister is taking in this very important industry.

There is another part of my county which is undergoing hardships at the moment—Greenore. The Minister knows it very well and I am sure he has done everything possible to expedite the initiation of an industry that is supposed to start there. About 12 months ago a well-known firm expressed its intention to extend its field of operations to Greenore but, so far, there is no sign of its coming. Even though it is a private concern, the Minister would do well to use his good offices and influence in getting this industry established. There is great unemployment in the area which at one time was very prosperous. Ships plied across the Channel and the railway operated from Dundalk and gave great employment. I hope the Minister will do all he possibly can to relieve the acute unemployment that at present exists in the area. Greenore has become of late a deserted village owing to unemployment and emigration.

I would also like to refer to the recent announcement with regard to tanneries. I sympathise with the people who are affected by the threatened close down of Portlaw tannery but I would remind the Minister that it is important that any restrictions he intends to place on the importation of raw material for the manufacture of boots and shoes should not adversely affect the boot factories. Taking the overall picture, the number employed in the boot factories vastly outweighs the number employed in the tanneries. Of course, that is poor consolation for the people who are affected by the close down of the tanneries. There is a happy medium. I do not envy the Minister his task in trying to solve the difficulty but I would remind him that, as Deputy Jack Lynch said, very often during the year the workers in these boot factories are on short time. As there are many thousands of people employed in these factories that is regrettable. A great deal of thought must be concentrated on this problem before a definite decision is made.

With regard to the question of the oil refinery, I do not want to refer to it unduly but I would like to bring to the Minister's notice the facilities that exist in Greenore for an oil refinery. I know the Minister will say that it is a matter for the three oil companies concerned but I would remind the Minister that Greenore is the only deep-water port between Dublin and Belfast, which is a very important consideration.

Very often there are questions on the Order Paper relating to the E.S.B. and to the problems of electrification. Very often the Minister is asked to use his influence with the E.S.B. in the solving of some problem, for instance, the problem of having a certain area served. The answer invariably is that the Minister has no function in the matter and therefore cannot do anything. I fail to understand how the Minister has no function in the matter in view of the fact that public moneys are advanced to this semi-State body to enable them to carry out their work. I would ask the Minister to do all he can to resolve such difficulties because many hardships exist as a result of areas being by-passed.

Mr. Kyne

When a speaker indicates some of the difficulties that beset the Minister for Industry and Commerce in his attempt to find some solution to the closing down of the Portlaw tannery, I think it is only right that that speaker should, at the same time, indicate to the Minister that he must consider not only the Portlaw tannery in my constituency of Waterford, or in any other constituency, but the overall employment position and the keeping alive of industry generally throughout the country. Notwithstanding that, I would urge on the Minister in connection with the situation that exists in Portlaw that he and his Department should make every effort they possibly can to ensure that the 300 workers there get every chance of being taken back into the industry for which they trained at the earliest possible moment.

It is not necessary here to ventilate the history of the Portlaw tannery and its gradual closing down. As late as last Thursday evening my fellow-Deputy, Deputy Ormonde, gave the House an idea of the position. While he gave the position as he saw it, I would like to indicate how a divergence of views can exist, not between Deputy Ormonde and myself, as to the reasons for the closing down, but between Deputy Ormonde and the ex-Minister for Industry and Commerce, a member of Deputy Ormonde's own Party, Deputy Seán Lemass.

Deputy Lemass, speaking on Wednesday, 23rd March, is reported at column 552 of the Official Report as saying:—

"The Minister has announced that he is placing restrictions on the importation of substitute soling. That is all right as far as it goes, but so far as I know there is no power in the Minister to prevent anybody in this country from manufacturing this synthetic soling—and I do not think there is any difficulty in doing it. Any effect of the restrictions on the importation of substitute soling can only be very short-lived."

At columns 553 and 554 on the same day, in the same debate, Deputy Lemass said:—

"It is wrong to think that the problem of our tanners and boot factories is due entirely to the emergence of this synthetic soling material. There have been synthetic soling materials on the market for many years. The real problem has been the loss of the competitive advantages they had during the period when that control over hide exports was in operation."

That is Deputy Seán Lemass's view. Deputy Ormonde's view is, and I quote from the Official Report of 24th March, column 814:—

"If the Minister approves of the importation of these materials in such quantities as to put a one-time flourishing home industry completely out of action, he should say so and give his reasons therefor, and he should be further prepared to arrange for the utilisation of part of the premises, the plant and equipment, and the employees of Irish Tanners, Limited, in the production of these imported materials which are being brought in in such large quantities by our boot factories, the majority of which are under the control of English directors and English managers."

At the same column, Deputy Ormonde states:—

"Why, then, he has taken no action, and not only has taken no action but has sanctioned the establishment of an industry in another southern town, thereby killing all hope of recovery for the Portlaw concern, is inexplicable."

It seems very strange that Deputy Ormonde should believe, for whatever reason, that it is the Minister's failure to restrict imports of synthetic soling material that is causing the close down of Portlaw while the ex-Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Lemass, says that that has no connection with it at all. In fact, he goes further, as I will show, and gives his reasons for that statement. Is it that an effort is being made to hang on the present Minister responsibility for causing the close down? If that is so, then I would like to say here and now that as far back as October, 1953, I attended a meeting of the workers in that tannery. At that time they were under threat of being put on short time. We were told—I, as a Deputy and their trade union organiser, and also Deputy Ormonde who attended the meeting with me—that the difficulty was being caused because synthetic soling materials were being allowed into the country. We suggested a deputation to the then Minister; but the Minister of the day, Deputy Seán Lemass, had just shortly prior to that actually invited Dunlops of Cork to go into the production of synthetic soling materials. Dunlops have gone into production and are at the moment weekly increasing their output of foam rubber.

I think Deputy Lemass's action was quite right. If the boot and shoe industry needs synthetic soling materials in order to compete, it is preferable that that material should be manufactured in the country rather than imported from elsewhere under licence. That is my opinion, even though such manufacture affects my constituency. Taking the overall situation, it is good policy. But I do not believe that the production of synthetic soling materials or its importation has in any way affected Portlaw. It is a well-known fact that for the past ten or 15 years over three quarters of the production of Portlaw has gone to the British market. It went there, not because of any particular advantage in relation to Portlaw as compared with any other tannery but because of the fact that British leather could not be produced at the same price at which Irish leather was produced. The price of hides in Britain was double what it was here. The price of hides has altered since here and has increased by a couple of pence per lb. It is a fact that there is at the moment a surplus of British hides and prices there have dropped 50 per cent. That is what is causing the upset. These factors were not within the control of Deputy Lemass when he was Minister for Industry and Commerce. Neither are they within the control of the present Minister.

This is a regrettable fact, but it is a fact we must face: the manufacture of heavy sole leather is on its way out. After all, leather has been used for boots and shoes and other things since the middle of the last century. It has had a good innings. The day of rubber is at hand. Indeed, there are some who think that even it is on its way out. Plastics will be the material of the future. Plastics are with us at the moment and they will be more so in the years to come.

I suggest to the people in Portlaw that they should cut their losses, take time by the forelock and endeavour to get into plastics in order to meet the demand. It is ridiculous to talk of stop-gap remedies for such a big industry. It is quite true we could put pressure on the Government, perhaps, to secure a limited amount of employment for three or four or five weeks by means of various grants from various Departments This is an old industry and it would be a worthwhile move if the Industrial Development Authority, or the Minister, through the Industrial Development Authority, had a consultation with the Portlaw people and see if any alternative industry could be set up in that very fine factory on which so much money has been spent within a short time.

Mr. Briscoe

Did the Minister say anything about it or give Deputy Ormonde any reply?

Mr. Kyne

On what particular point?

Mr. Briscoe

On Deputy Ormonde's case.

Mr. Kyne

Yes. I could read it for the Deputy.

Mr. Briscoe

The relevant parts.

Mr. Kyne

I shall read the part I have underlined, but it might not be the portion Deputy Briscoe would choose to have read. The Minister for Industry and Commerce is replying as follows:—

"In October, 1952, Dunlop's factory here was supplied with a list of imported materials, synthetic materials, and told by the Fianna Fáil Government that they should try to manufacture those commodities here. For what? I suggest only for use. Deputy Ormonde says that I sanctioned the establishment of an industry in another town to do harm to Portlaw. What I am going to say now will be embarrassing to Deputy Ormonde, but let the Deputy not forget to tell the truth when he is next in Portlaw, and when he is there let him not forget to tell the people, especially those who voted for him, that on the 16th January, 1953, a manufacturing licence was issued to Dunlop's authorising that firm to manufacture rubber sheeting, including soling, and that new manufacture licence to make rubber soling was issued to Dunlop's in 1953 by the Fianna Fáil Government."

Mr. Briscoe

What about Portlaw? What does he say about that?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Kyne should be allowed to make his speech in his own way, but would he kindly give the reference of that quotation.

Mr. Kyne

It was the debate of 24th March this year, and it is reported at column 821 of the Official Report for that date. I should like to co-operate with Deputy Briscoe if I knew what particular thing he wants. Anybody who wants to know what the Tánaiste said in reply to Deputy Ormonde can have it by referring to the Official Report for the 24th March.

Mr. Briscoe

Perhaps the Deputy would let me read it when he is finished.

Mr. Kyne

I am finished with it now; I can hand it to the Deputy now if he wants it. I might say that I would never have used that retort of the Tánaiste, that damaging retort——

Mr. Briscoe

It was not damaging, it was a political retort and it had nothing to do with Portlaw.

Mr. Kyne

It will be of use when I go to Portlaw. As far as I am concerned as a Labour Deputy the unemployment position continues to be one of the main problems which should have the especial attention of the Government, and it is probably due to the present Minister for Industry and Commerce that any improvements have been obtained. If we can quote from the sheets, the latest one says that there were 70,879 on the total live register on the 12th March last, that is 6,000 better than this time 12 months ago, but, as I said before on the Supplies and Services Bill, is that an indication of progress? It certainly is not looked upon by me as being a very happy state of affairs in this country. These figures do not present the whole picture. Any of us who are men of the world and who know world conditions as they are realise that there are thousands and thousands of boys and girls of 17, 18 and 19 years of age of middle-class parents who do not register at the unemployment exchanges even though they are idle at home, waiting for and seeking work.

I feel quite sure that if the overall picture were taken there would be another five or six or up to ten thousand added to the register. It is our job to try and have as many as possible absorbed in employment. The only vent or escape for these boys and girls appears to be emigration because not all of them can be taken up in the services—the Civil Service and the service of the local authorities and the various other places in which these people ordinarily seek employment. Instead they have to emigrate to Britain and endeavour to become employed as nurses and clerks. The loss of these young people must be a cause for grave anxiety. It is bound to tell against this country because if such a trend is not checked we will have a preponderance of the weak, the sickly and the old in this country with our youth going to other lands. That would be a very serious situation.

Private enterprise does not seem to have dealt with the problem. Much has been done by successive Governments, and in saying that I should like to give credit to the Fianna Fáil Government. In the early days they did encourage and stimulate industries; they did cause to be erected many factories throughout the country which are doing very good work. In my town of Dungarvan, we have benefited considerably from the factories built there during the Fianna Fáil régime. I never like to take away their due from any people. As the saying goes, successive native Governments have been discredited one by the other. Each Government in its own way did something and we went on bit by bit. It is not right that one Government should try to take away from what the other Government did when in office.

I think it is safe to say that private enterprise seems to have tapped all the sources they are likely to tap in the main. We have had 30 years of native Government and whether it is because the interest rate is not big enough or the risk of losing money in the remaining untapped sources is too great, there appears to be a falling off or a slowing up of private investment in industry in this country. I welcome the Tánaiste's statement that he is thinking on the lines of encouraging foreign capital. If he could induce foreign capital to come in here without being detrimental to Irish capital investment I think it would be a good line to follow.

Mr. Briscoe

To come in as private enterprise?

Mr. Kyne

If necessary.

Mr. Briscoe

That is the only way it will come in.

Mr. Kyne

Not at all.

Mr. Briscoe

Does the Deputy think that other Governments would come in here and start factories for us?

Mr. Kyne

That is not the whole of the story. I share with Deputy Briscoe the belief that it is difficult to get foreign capital to come in unless they get certain encouragement.

Mr. Briscoe

Unless they are allowed to remain as private enterprise. They are afraid they might not.

Mr. Kyne

Afraid we might become Socialists?

Mr. Briscoe

If the Deputy wishes.

Mr. Kyne

It would be from the frying pan into the fire. There was a Socialist Government in England not so long ago and it is going back again soon. The Minister should instruct the Industrial Development Authority to investigate the position as to what factories could be established here even though the interest on the money might be small and the risk of loss great but which might actually break even. I am aware that private enterprise, whether foreign or Irish, is not anxious to put money into industry where the risk is big and return small but we should not judge industry in that way only. The Industrial Development Authority should put to the Minister and he in turn to the House information about industries which we are capable of sustaining, and leave it to the House whether or not Government money might be invested in them. If we only got employment for 100 people, and the likelihood is that we would get employment for many more, Government money so invested would be well spent. I think Dáil Éireann is the institution which would be able to judge properly whether it should be done.

The last speaker, Deputy Coburn, I think it was, spoke of the oil refinery. I do not want to speak on behalf of Waterford or anywhere else. When most Deputies stand up to speak of the oil refinery they seem to make some special claim as to where that should be. I do not think any of us in Waterford want to make any claim for the oil refinery because I think it would be a waste of time. The oil refinery will be put where the people financing it decide is to their best advantage and nowhere else.

Any comment or suggestion I would make would be a waste of time. However, I would say this, time is passing and if the oil companies cannot make up their mind within a reasonable time, the Government might take into consideration dealing with one company and securing their technical knowledge and co-operation. If the companies cannot unite to set up the oil refinery the Government and one company might find it a good investment to set it up and to give us the consequent good results which the Tánaiste indicated when he announced that as a practical step, that the oil companies were to get together and establish a refinery.

There is just one other comment I would like to make before I conclude. It is in regard to the oft-repeated cry in connection with the difficulties between labour and management. We get from the management the statement: "If the workers would co-operate, if they would produce more, we would be able to advance in the export market, we would be able to get people employed." But we on the labour side, speaking from the trade union point of view, always reply by saying: "Why should we produce more? If we produce more that only means that some of us are going to be let go quicker than we were before."

Give us a say in the management, explain your difficulties to us, let our representatives see why these difficulties are there and we will give full co-operation. Then if we produce more let us get not a bonus share but take our rightful share in the increased profits that will come because we produced them. If any industry were prepared to tackle their problem on those lines you would get much more co-operation from the workers. Very often it is just a fear, a fear not perhaps even justified but while that fear is there it is going to be difficult to convince workers that increased output will give them anything but unemployment.

If the management set up a system of taking into their confidence the leaders elected by the workers and of taking them into management, they in turn would let the information they got percolate through the industry and the workers would see the position as it really was. If they had a knowledge as to how the position would alter, worsen or improve, and knew that if dividends increased they would get their share, you would find all the co-operation which has been asked for and been received in the British factories since war-time.

I suggest to the employers that they should try that for a change. I am quite sure that Irish industrial magazines will attack and oppose anybody who makes such a suggestion but there are good employers in this country and very often well-intentioned employers who have been induced to distrust their employees. I would say to those employers that a little more confidence, a little more understanding and a little more plain talk between both sides could lead to an improvement for both.

There is just one final point and that is the cost of living. I, in common with the rest of the people, regret that we have not been able to reduce the cost of living to any appreciable extent within the past six months.

Mr. Briscoe

It has gone up.

Mr. Kyne

It is coming down.

Mr. Carter

What has come down?

Mr. Kyne

Butter, 5d. per lb. Of course, nobody eats butter in this country. No housewife appreciates that reduction.

Mr. Carter

What came with it?

Mr. Kyne

A number of things came with it. One of the things that might come to help is that if we cannot bring down some of the commodities maybe we will bring up the things that buy them. It is the same thing, if you get an increase in wages or if you reduce the price of commodities.

Mr. Carter

Deputy O'Donovan criticised us severely for doing that.

Mr. Kyne

The Prices Advisory Body is one of the means of preventing profiteering or racketeering if anything like that is tried. It is, to my mind, a body that could do very useful work, but I still think it has not got sufficient powers. The Minister should seriously investigate the position vis-à-vis the powers of the Prices Advisory Body. One of the things that happens to my own information is that on a recommendation being made to the Minister to declare the price of a certain commodity, almost within days of the price being fixed that commodity is altered by name and for quite a while escapes any action. Something very definite should be done to ensure that simply an alteration of name or just a slight alteration in the formation of the commodity to justify an altered name will not be sufficient to escape the fixing of the price.

Another factor is that the Prices Advisory Body have to act on balance sheets handed in by the employers or producers of the commodity. All of us know that balance sheets are funny things to say the least of them. I do not believe that all balance sheets of industrial companies and manufacturers show a true picture. I think an auditor is employed more with a view to beating the income-tax rather than showing how the position of the firm is at the moment. If he does his job well he will be able to prove very often a loss where a gain has taken place. If the Prices Advisory Body are not armed with sufficient technical assistance to be able to break down these balance sheets they will make a recommendation to the Minister on things that are not actually fact although they appear to be so. Very often where a recommendation for an increase was agreed to reluctantly perhaps by the Prices Advisory Body they would, if they had known the facts, probably have refused to make that recommendation to the Minister.

One of the things I am told is that the Prices Section of the Minister's Department appears not to be functioning very well. A number of cases have been cited to me where increases have taken place within a short period without any request being made to the Prices Advisory Body. It has been suggested that the Prices Advisory Body are not aware of these increases but surely the Prices Section of our Department of Industry and Commerce should be in a position to inform the Prices Advisory Body, the Minister himself or his Department of this change of price. To my mind one of the most efficient ways of dealing with alterations of price without permission would be to empower, say, the police, as in the case of the food and drug inspectors, to report on variations of prices charged where fixed charges have been announced by the Minister.

I have found the police the most efficient portion of the Civil Service. You give a policeman a job to do and he will do it without fear or favour. I would therefore suggest that the Minister might seriously consider asking the Department of Justice to co-operate with the food and drugs inspectors in sending in reports either weekly, monthly or whatever way might be thought necessary to the Prices Section drawing attention to variations of prices charged on fixed-price commodities.

I think that is all I have to say on Industry and Commerce. We had quite a long session on Supplies and Services, but I would like to appeal to the Minister in my final words to give any help he possibly can to the tanning industry at Portlaw. I am quite satisfied that if possible he will do that. I can say that the fate of a village which has been very happy for the people who lived there for the past 20 years in full employment is tied up with the tannery industry. Whether it is the tannery industry or some other industry it is absolutely essential, if we are not to have mass emigration from Portlaw, to have some industry set up there and operating within a very sort time.

Mr. Moher

When we come to speak of industrial development in this country we cannot get away from the fact that we are primarily an agricultural country and that our whole economy is based on our agricultural output. We can only develop our industrial potential in relation to agricultural development. When we realise that something over 80 per cent. of our total export trade comes from agriculture, when we realise the very small proportion of industrial goods which we manufacture, and when we realise the small proportion which are exported, we cannot but be convinced that industrial development here must bear some relationship to our agricultural development. We know, no matter whether we like to admit it or not, that the pattern of Irish agriculture—the mechanics may have changed —when measured from the production end of it, has changed very little. Every one of the rural Deputies has time and again had the taunt thrown out to us that Dublin is Ireland and one cannot come into this city or leave it without being impressed that there are some grounds for this taunt which is being thrown out in regard to industrial development here.

No matter by what road one approaches this City of Dublin, one finds continually factories being raised and factories completed, and while it may be argued that certain industries should be located in the capital or near the seaport there are industries based here in Dublin which, when we realise that their products have to be transported out of the city, north and south, from one end of the country to another, might be better placed elsewhere. I think if we give certain protection and encouragement here to industrialists who want to come in here and manufacture certain goods that we should have some say in the diversion of those industries into the larger provincial towns. There is a tendency that industrialisation here is inclined to mean the urbanisation of rural populations. I can see no advantage whatever if we absorb 10,000 people into industry and if those 10,000 people, for one reason or another, have to be ferried into the City of Dublin.

Again, it makes many other problems which do not meet the eye. When you have a movement of population from a rural area you have to provide for their housing, their hospitalisation, even for the erection of their churches and schools, and in many instances this movement of population could be to a considerable degree a rescue if we could devise some means by which we could decentralise industry and push it out of the capital City of Dublin.

I began coming to Dublin 25 years ago, and I am utterly amazed when I think of the then city limits and now realise that a huge perimeter has grown up on what was once open farms and open country. In many instances, we notice even in rural areas where we have industries that some of those industries are placed—fortunately for the towns that got them—in rather sparsely populated rural areas and you have this movement into the towns. You have the rural schools empty; you have a demand for increased school accommodation, increased housing with all the additions such as increased water and sewerage schemes. I think there should be some definite plan and that the Department of Industry and Commerce should address itself to this all-important question of seeing that when some industrialist approaches that particular department and when a proposal is made for the promotion of a certain industry here and when certain facilities are demanded and certain concessions given, I think, taking into consideration the particular type of industry indicated, that the Minister and his Department should have some control in diverting that particular industry to a particular area.

We have seen and we have read many causes put forward for the flight from the land, but I have always maintained that in industrial development in this country the emphasis should be placed more on the point that industry here should be used to absorb our surplus population from the land and to find employment for that surplus population in the towns and villages. I notice in my constituency there has been a certain development, the erection of village schemes in certain towns which possibly at one time might get an industry, but now hopes have receded and we have the rather ridiculous and ambiguous position there of rural workers living in serviced houses in the town and forced to go out into the hinterland to find employment.

Again, there are certain towns—and I have mentioned this many times before I became a member of this House—which were old military towns and whose whole economy was based on the army of occupation. Then there were certain developments here, and when we did get rid of that army of occupation one of the things we have to admit is that we smashed the economy not alone of the town but also of a considerable area around it. I move to report progress.

Progress reported; the Committee to sit again.