I move:—
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £172,990 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1962, 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 sundry Grants-in-Aid.
This sum covers, in effect, two Estimates: One is the anticipated cost of recoupment in the year ending on March 31st, 1962, of ex gratia payments by Dundalk Engineering Works, Ltd., to former Great Northern Railway Board employees at the Board's Dundalk workshops who had to be laid off, temporarily or permanently, because the new group of companies were unable to find suitable employment for them.
The other is the anticipated cost of repayable advances to Nítrigin Éireann Teoranta in the year ending on 31st March, 1962. It will provide for the preliminary expenses of the company, including the acquisition of office premises, the administrative expenses of running the company until the end of the present financial year, the cost of sites surveys and other services in connection with the selection of the actual site for the factory, and the cost of possible purchases from St. Patrick's Copper Mines Ltd.
I shall deal first with the Dundalk Engineering Works Ltd. In the financial year 1958/59, a sum of £50,000 was voted to cover the anticipated cost of ex gratia payments by this company to former Great Northern Railway Board employees at the Board's Dundalk workshops who had to be laid off, but actual expenditure was only £8,607, the balance being surrendered to the Exchequer. In the year 1959/60 a total of £104,010 was voted and expenditure came to £96,957. In the year 1960/61 a sum of £190,000 was provided and expenditure came to £149,424. For the current year, owing to the impossibility, at the time the Estimates were being prepared, of anticipating what sum would be required, a token provision of £10 was made. It can now be estimated that a sum of £73,000 will be required to meet payments under the scheme. It is thus estimated that total payments under the ex gratia payments scheme will come to about £327,989.
Deputies will recall that declarations of permanent redundancy had to be withheld, in order to avoid making unjustified payments, in all cases where there existed a possibility that suitable work would be found. It is due to this cause that in the uncertain employment situation of the new companies, the termination of the scheme has had to be deferred until now.
Between December, 1959, and 31st March, 1960, 167 workers were declared permanently redundant, a further 116 in August, 1960, and 109 in March, 1961, not the anticipated 218 that was mentioned in the debate on 2nd March, 1961. A final group numbering 123 are now seen to be permanently redundant and it is proposed so to declare them, and give them ex gratia payments in accordance with the scheme.
I am advised by the principals of the company that they now feel that suitable employment of a reasonably stable kind can be provided for the workers who will remain in their employment after this last group. As I pointed out to the House during the debate of 2nd March, 1961, on this subject the companies must operate on ordinary commercial principles and the position of the workers will, in general, be no different from the position of workers engaged in the same field of industrial activity.
I now turn to Nítrigin Éireann Teoranta. As has recently been announced, the Government has approved the setting up of a company to negotiate binding tenders for a nitrogenous fertiliser factory to be located at Arklow, based on the use of fuel oil and Avoca pyrites. This company, Nítrigin Éireann Teoranta, has now been incorporated under the Companies Acts and it is the intention to promote legislation at the appropriate time to provide a statutory basis for the company.
As Deputies are no doubt aware, the possibility of establishing a nitrogenous fertiliser factory has been under active examination for many years. The present proposal is, therefore, the outcome of fullest consideration of all factors involved and has taken cognisance of the latest technological developments in the industry.
The Government are satisfied that the economics of using all possible raw materials at alternative locations in this country has been fully considered and that a nitrogenous fertiliser factory operated by a State Company at Arklow could produce nitrogenous fertilisers for sale without subsidisation at prices in line with prevailing import prices.
The decision to proceed with this project marks a most important advance in the implementation of the programme for economic expansion, and will, I am sure, commend itself to Deputies.
I recommend that the House should approve of this Supplementary Estimate.