asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he is aware that a new type of beet harvesting machine has been designed and built by Mr. Andrew Heffernan of Cahir, County Tipperary, which would greatly improve efficiency in harvesting beet; that Mr. Heffernan recently refused a substantial offer from a Dutch agricultural machinery firm on the grounds that he would like to have his machine developed and manufactured in Ireland; and if he will state what action he has taken or is prepared to take to have this machine manufactured in Ireland.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Beet Harvesting Machine.
53.
I am not aware of the circumstances mentioned by the Deputy. I understand that Mr. Andrew Heffernan, Moate House, Knockgraffon, Cahir, Co. Tipperary made application to the Patents Office for provisional protection for a beet harvesting machine but as he did not pursue the application in accordance with the relevant Act and Rules, it was treated as abandoned. The Patents Office advised him as to how his application might be renewed but he has not renewed it.
The Institute for Industrial Research and Standards, Ballymun Road, Dublin 9 may advise or assist in the development and exploitation of patentable inventions where it is in the public interest to do so.
Apart altogether from the question of patents, which does not arise on this question, does the Minister not consider that it is a very serious indictment of his Department and agencies under his Department, the Industrial Development Authority and An Foras Tionscal, that an enterprise of this kind could be ignored and that his various agencies could be so utterly blind as not to realise the tremendous potentialities of an invention of this kind and that it should have to be pointed out to us by Dutch or British people? Nothing whatsoever was done to assist this inventor to bring his idea to fruition. This machine has been a reality for some years past. Will the Minister now say what he will do to have this machine manufactured in this country by reason of the very important employment content involved, apart altogether from its intrinsic worth from the point of view of agriculture? What is the Minister doing to assist this man to have his machine manufactured in Ireland rather than in Holland? Are the Dutch going to take it?
The answer to the first question is no; I do not consider that it is an indictment of State bodies.
Indeed it is. If the person concerned were a foreigner, he would get all the help in the world.
If he were building aeroplanes, he might do better.
If the Deputy is short of inventions, I have plenty of people with inventions that could be taken up by the State.
The only invention was the Skibbereen factory before the election.
The country is full of crackpot inventions.