I want to endorse what other Deputies have said about the obvious effects of this measure on previous legislation passed for the benefit of the undeveloped areas. I think we stressed the fact here on the Second Reading that there was no spirit of criticism of the proposals of this Bill in our remarks. It is not that we, representing the undeveloped areas, had any envious feelings toward equivalent help to industries in the better favoured parts of the country, and if the Minister is going on that line I would offer to him, as a very effective reply, that nature itself is the reason. Nature's dispensation is the reason why there was the discrimination, if such it could be called, in the Undeveloped Areas Act. Agriculture is the main activity of the country. The great central plain, the province of Munster and the eastern regions, as we know, have been favoured by nature for the development of agriculture. No such conditions exist over the greater part of the territory west of the Shannon. It is inexplicable, therefore, why this present Minister, who has shown such appreciation of factors in many other spheres, ignores this. I can only conclude that he is deliberately cynical about the effect on these undeveloped areas.
Some years ago, I recall, when there was a choice as to the location of an industry between Kerry and Kildare, the Minister favoured Kildare because he represented Kildare. That was his own statement. If he was speaking as a Deputy, one could understand it but it does indicate that the Minister has not that solicitude for these areas which we would expect in a man in his high position. He did seem to think after the last war that industrialists generally in the country were pretty well supplied with finance to expand their industries. I need not dilate on how he expressed that viewpoint but he was sufficiently eloquent and forceful in his description of the conditions of affairs which he thought existed to indicate that he thought they would not require any assistance by way of legislation to finance any further development which they might conceive.
This is a marked and noticeable change in the attempts which the Coalition have been making for the last two years to show that they were able to go one better than Fianna Fáil. Where we had a Parliamentary Secretary to represent those areas, they were not satisfied until they gave them a Minister. Whether it is the Minister's change or the Government's change I do not know, but certainly there is a very marked change here. There is no question of going one better in respect of the undeveloped areas. Without any formal recantation a measure is brought in whose obvious effect will be to nullify completely the good effects of the Undeveloped Areas Act.
The Undeveloped Areas Act may not have been a spectacular success taking all the undeveloped areas as a unit, but there were spectacular results in certain parts of those areas. While within those areas we may not have had the diffusion of industrial effort which we would have hoped for, industries of a very considerable size and significance were established which would, to some considerable extent, keep migration at least west of the Shannon, and that would have been some achievement. Now the only hope for industrial development in those areas will be wherever very large scale industries will be capable of establishment for an export trade. In so far as the home market and the smaller type of industry are concerned, this Bill spells finis and we have no chance from now on of getting those very valuable smaller class industries which would not urbanise our Gaeltacht areas but would give employment of a permanent character. That development was possible and had shown some signs of giving help under the Undeveloped Areas Act.
If we seem to feel bitter about this we have very good reason for so doing. I do not know whether it is possible for the Minister to have second thoughts about this, whether he would not consider referring this matter to some sort of committee or body, let it be an all-Party committee of this House or some such body, with the aid of the best economic advisers he has got, to try to anticipate and to analyse what its possible effects will be.
I recall to mind, before the passing of the Undeveloped Areas Act, the case of a very interesting project which I had hoped would come to one of the poorest parts of my constituency. It was an industry which would have given employment mainly to girls. At the time there was a very heavy emigration of young girls from those areas to England. The promoters of the project were very interested themselves, from, I should say, patriotic reasons as well as other reasons, in decentralising and coming in to a Gaeltacht district. They examined the project thoroughly and informed me subsequently that they regretted very much their inability to establish the industry in my constituency because of the economic factors which we all know existed before the passing of the Undeveloped Areas Act.
That is one very striking personal experience I have had and I was very gratified when the Undeveloped Areas Act came into existence to remove those handicaps and relieve such patriotic promoters from the economic disabilities which existed. Now the Minister, with a complete disregard of the effects on the achievements and possibilities of that Undeveloped Areas Act, introduces, a measure which will wipe all that out. It is not conceivable that anybody who has £50,000 to invest in an industry in Mullingar, Clonmel or Kildare, will go down to Oughterard or Louisburg with it. I certainly would not expect them to do it. I take it that henceforth all the people west of the Shannon can hope for from the direction of industry as we are now experiencing it is to follow the industries as it is quite obvious that, under this measure, the industries will not go to them.
