I want to make a few observations in relation to a document that has come into my hands within the past couple of days. This provides money for the various facets of Government; therefore, I am in order in referring to this type of money that has been provided for. In the particular case I have in mind, the chairman of a public company here has, in his accounts and statement which he circulated to his shareholders, thrown doubt, by implication, on the statement that has been made that financial assistance will be available to industry as a whole. The actual words he used in one place are:
We look to the Government to support established Irish industries such as ours and to implement their promises to give financial assistance so that a Company of our standing may have a fair chance in these days of fierce international competition. We are an Irish Company and proud of it but we do deplore foreign industrialists being subsidised at our expense in the production of certain articles for sale in Ireland and which are also made by us and for which we have received no financial aid.
The company in question is a wellknown company in this country. I cannot see any possibility of the chairman making that statement, unless he felt it was true. I thought it was clearly understood in relation to the various types of inducements that were made available for people to start up new industries here that the purpose of their work was not to compete with already well-established industries but to strike out in a new market, strike out very often in relation to the export market and certainly to form a sector of public marketing different from that which was catered for already.
In relation to the 1956 Grants Act, as well as I can remember, there was a specific statement that the grants could not be made available if the industry was going to compete with existing established home industries unless it could show it was necessary to fill a further sector of the home market. I hope the Minister will agree with me when I say that while we are all anxious—and desperately anxious —that every possible inducement should be given to industrialists to start up new industries, it does not help the national effort as a whole if it is merely a question of starting in one place and taking away from another.
It would be grossly unfair to existing concerns if public money were made available to enable a new industry to take away from existing concerns the business, the trade and the commercial undertaking they have built up at very great expense. As I say, I find it difficult to believe that such would be the case but I cannot understand the Chairman of a public company of the size involved and with issued capital of £1,500,000 making that statement unless he had clear evidence before him that he was justified in his comments. I cannot understand it unless he feels he is justified in making it and justified in his duty to ensure that the public funds which we provide under this Money Resolution are not used for the purpose of injuring existing industries by taking from them the share of the market they already have.
