Vol. 221 No. 3
I move:—
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £1,620,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1966, 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.
The purpose of this Supplementary Estimate is to provide for the payment of market development grants to alleviate the burden being borne by exporters as a result of the imposition in October, 1964, of the British temporary charge on imports. A token provision of £10 for this purpose was made in the 1965-66 Estimates as it was not possible when the Estimates were being framed to anticipate the amount that would be required in the year.
The intention of the Government was to pay grants up to 50 per cent of the burden borne by exporters subject to consideration of the steps being taken by each exporter to meet the situation. When the matter was discussed with manufacturers and exporters it became apparent that, for the scheme to be effective, it would be necessary for exporters to know as soon as possible the level of grants which would be available to them. Examination of individual cases would cause uncertainty and serious delay in making grants available. It was agreed, therefore, to pay grants generally at the rate of 40 per cent of the amount of the import charge paid with the provision that, in cases of exceptional difficulty, consideration would be given to paying 50 per cent of the amount of import charge actually borne by the exporter.
Approximately 600 firms have received grants under the scheme and of these 25 qualified for 50 per cent grants. The additional cost of paying 50 per cent instead of 40 per cent to these firms to date is £120,000. In July, 1965, the Government announced that, as a special incentive to firms to increase their exports, higher rates of grant would be paid to exporters who achieved a higher level of exports in the second half of 1965 than in the corresponding period in 1964. A similar scheme will operate in respect of exports for the first half of 1966 but the cost of this will not arise in the current year.
The British temporary charge on imports presented a very serious obstacle to our exports of manufactured goods and it was vitally necessary to enable exporters to maintain their trade so as to be in a position to continue the expansion of exports as soon as the situation eased. Thanks to these grants and to their own efforts, our exporters have been able to hold their position in the British market. It is estimated that in the current financial year a sum of £2,226,000 will be required under this subhead and accordingly the Supplementary Estimate now being placed before the Dáil is for £2,225,990.
The purpose of this Supplementary Estimate for £36,000 is to provide additional funds for Córas Tráchtála to help them to meet the greatly increased demand for their services and facilities and to enable the Board to provide some new services and facilities.
Following the introduction at the end of 1964 of the British import levy, Córas Tráchtála increased the scope and contribution rate on most of their grant schemes. The demand for all their schemes has been greater than was anticipated when the original Estimate for the current financial year was framed. As an extension of the aids and services to exporters, Córas Tráchtála have introduced a scheme of advertising incentive grants designed to encourage new campaigns of advertising and sales promotion abroad by exporters of branded consumer products. They have also launched a loan scheme to encourage the recruitment and training of export sales representatives.
The supplementary provision proposed for Córas Tráchtála will bring the total provision for the Board for the current financial year to £486,000 and the total amount provided since Córas Tráchtála was set up as a statutory Board in 1959 to £2,081,000. Under the existing legislation, the ceiling on grants to Córas Tráchtála is fixed at £2,500,000. I hope shortly to introduce legislation to raise the ceiling to £4,500,000.
An additional sum of £70,000 is also required to meet increases in salaries, wages and allowances in the Department. The amount is in the main due to status increases granted to the staff of the Department after the Estimates for 1965-66 had been prepared. Increases in the number of staff arising from the increased work of the Department in connection with prices inquiries, and market development grants must be provided for also. The amount required, £70,000, brings the total expenditure on salaries, wages and allowances to £680,000 for the year.
The additional £9,000 under subhead 1 for the Industrial Development Authority is in respect of payments under section 28 of the Superannuation and Pensions Act, 1963, which were not provided for in the original estimate.
The carrying out of a pilot manpower survey was suggested to the National Industrial Economic Council by the Adaptation Council for the Woollen and Worsted Industry which drew attention to the problem posed for industry by localised labour shortages in certain areas throughout the country and expressed the view that the true picture of the manpower situation was being masked by the published employment figures which showed "a spurious level of availability in all areas." The Adaptation Council stated that there was an urgent need for a study of all true availability of labour, as distinct from the Live Register figures, in all parts of the country and accordingly proposed "that steps should be taken immediately to undertake the necessary social research, possibly starting with a pilot area, with a view to delineating the problem and establishing how best it could be tackled."
The pilot survey in Drogheda is being carried out for my Department by the Department of Social Science of University College, Dublin, who have agreed to undertake the project on the basis of being reimbursed in respect of their actual outlay on the salaries and the travelling and other incidental expenses of the research staffs employed on the work. No professional fees are being charged and the senior staff of the Department of Social Science, who are responsible for the project are giving their services free of charge.
It is estimated that the total cost of the survey will amount to £6,500 and that approximately £6,000 will have been paid to University College by 31st March, 1966. As no provision had been made under Subhead O in the Vote for the Department of Industry and Commerce for expenditure on this survey work when the Estimates for the financial year 1965-66 were being prepared, it is now necessary to bring this Supplementary Estimate before the House for approval.
The gross amount required is £2,345,990. There are, however, offsetting savings of £700,990 on other subheads of the Vote together with an estimated increase in Appropriations in Aid of £25,000, which brings the net requirements to £1,620,000.
I recommend the Supplementary Estimate to the House.
In the circulated version of the Supplementary Estimate, the first item is salaries, wages and allowances. We awaited information from the Minister as to the exact nature of these increases. The Minister had told us that these are increases that came about after the Estimates for 1965-66 had been prepared. He now tells us that they are status increases. I am entirely in favour of paying the civil servants as well as is humanly possible and of giving them a status that is absolutely in line with similar employment outside, but I must say that in the year 1965-66 and in the stringent conditions in which the Government now find themselves, it does not appear correct procedure to have created by status increases a situation whereby an extra £70,000 is required for one Department of State. It seems to me to be wrong but I would wish to add to that statement that I would be the first to desire that these people would have every repayment for the excellent work which they do for us. I just do not think it is "with it" in 1965-66.
Córas Tráchtála are to cost £486,000 in this year. Córas Tráchtála are an excellent body. I have gone to them in my business capacity. Individually, they give to businessmen and industrialists a wonderful service. They have done an extremely good job in promoting export trade with overseas countries. While that is true, the Minister might look at the general policy of Córas Tráchtála in relation to trade promotion in the more general way. It may be as a result of not spending enough money in this sector and it may be because of a deflection of effort but the fact is that while the individual businessman here who goes to Córas Tráchtála seeking to have his product exported profitably will get a service second to none, our general impact on world trade circles where knowledge of Irish goods could mean many inquiries from persons who hardly know Ireland exists, seems to be somewhat lacking.
One finds in business circles abroad that very little is known about Irish products which are so good and so available. The problem is divided into two sectors: the individual effort for the exporter here and the general effort in sales promotion abroad. I want to say that I mean no discredit to the officers of Córas Tráchtála when I mention the fact that I believe that we are falling down in the sector of general trade promotion abroad.
This may well be due to the fact that £486,000 in this sort of promotion is not a large sum, because out of that sum must be taken salaries and expenses, grants and all the other things that eat up money. It may well be that when it comes to advertising and the promotional side, they are not being given enough funds to do the job. I believe that to be true and, therefore, I think it well to mention it.
The Industrial Development Authority need more money. They need £9,000 for salaries and, for temporary assistance for industry, the large sum that is the main part of this Supplementary Estimate. The work of the Industrial Development Authority is of the greatest importance. It is very necessary that it should be given every incentive to expand. It prepares for the Board of An Foras Tionscal proposals for new industries here. On these proposals the Board of An Foras Tionscal decide to give a grant or not.
Let us face the fact that we have had spectacular failures and let us also appreciate that what the Minister said in reply to supplementary questions yesterday is also true, that one way not to guarantee having spectacular failures is to give no grants at all. I completely agree with the Minister in that line of thought but I would direct his attention to the fact that since 1956, when the Finance (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill and the Industrial Grants Bill were enacted, there has been no fundamental change in the nature of the encouragement given to industry here. I am convinced that there is more meat for us in giving greater freedom from income tax in respect of goods sold at home to industrialists who would set up here than there is in giving large capital sums which may go to people who come here for one reason only, that they need, in the worst possible way, these large capital sums in order to set up an industry.
That is not to say that I would be violently critical of the Government because of certain failures, but it is true to say that the Minister is responsible for his Department and the Minister is responsible for the decisions of what I call the offshoots of his Department and, within this House, the Government must be responsible for money that has been spent, money which has not given the return the people would wish.
There has been an emphatic denial by the Minister, and by his predecessor, and by every Minister for Industry and Commerce who sat over there, that it is easier to get a grant if you come from abroad than it is if you are an Irishman. I agree with the Minister and his predecessors that, on paper, this emphatic denial is correct, but, at the same time, when one takes into account that at the present moment adaptation grants are fixed at a maximum level of 25 per cent whereas grants for new industry can be in the order of 50 per cent, or, outside the developed areas, 60 per cent, one realises that existing industry, largely home industry, is not getting the same opportunity for expansion as a new industry gets to set up here. That is a mathematical fact and nobody can deny it.
To go from the sublime to the ridiculous, let us face the fact that one of the reasons why a landless man cannot get land is that it immediately gets rid of nine-tenths of the applicants. The fact that an existing industry can get only 25 per cent of the cost of an adaptation programme means that it must get 75 per cent itself. Secondly, having had an adaptation grant, there are no tax incentives such as a new industry will have because the trade has followed a certain pattern and the products may not be defined as a new industry. For that reason tax incentives do not fall to them.
I believe we have now reached a stage at which a complete re-alignment and re-appraisal of our grants system is not only necessary but overdue. I believe we should go over on the side of incentives rather than on the side of pushing capital in. Very often people come here and avail of capital, people who could very easily get the capital themselves. It is unwise to talk of failure in one's own constituency, but take the case of GEC. They took a grant of £300,000 and then closed down the factory in Dundalk. Their trade may have taken a nose-dive but surely the board of directors in Britain, faced with the decision as to whether or not to close the factory, would have thought far more seriously about closing it if the incentive that brought them here had not been £300,000 capital grant but rather tax reductions over a longer period of years and even, perhaps, tax reductions in respect of goods sold to our own people at home.
That is an example to show that the frigid line, frozen since 1956, needs to be thawed out. It shows how we are now falling behind Northern Ireland and those areas in Britain where, because of the failure of the ship-building and other industries, large grants are being given by the British Government. I have had it proved to me by a very successful industrialist that it was just as good for him to go to Lancashire and there avail of factory space at a certain rent per square foot, factory space provided by the British Government, as it was to avail of a grant here and build a factory for himself. I have had negotiations with a gentleman from Israel over the last month in relation to the establishment of an industry here, which I hope will come, and he has shown me that in most countries in Europe and in his own country there are as great incentives available in a different way for the establishment of industry as there are here. I believe that in most cases these incentives have been applied in a wiser way, in a way that has been good for the State and the people concerned.
What does it matter, after all, whether it is an income tax concession over 10 years or a capital sum? It is better to pay it by instalments because one gets a better type when one gives what is really a premium on production and a premium on production guarantees employment. That is the reason why this Government are now faced with a situation in which there are spectacular failures. Time and again the Board of Foras Tionscal, for which I have the greatest regard, have had to decide on the plans before them, plans which in a minority of cases, I emphatically suggest, have been produced on the basis that paper will not refuse anything. There is a serious responsibility on the Minister to give the data and figures to this House in relation to any difficulties there are in regard to these grants and loans.
It is not good enough to give the sort of answer the Minister gave me yesterday. I want to emphasise that the question I asked was asked on the basis of name and address supplied. The matter was between myself and the Minister and, on that basis, the House was entitled to know where the taxpayers' money had gone and if, in fact, money had also gone into that particular company by way of industrial loan. It is not good enough for the Minister to say that he has no function —that was his reply to Question No. 34 yesterday—in the matter of industrial loans. If the Industrial Credit Company give a loan, from where does the money come? If Taiscí Stáit give a loan, from where does the money come? To give the Minister his due, he gave me some information in the latter case because only two loans have been given, but, if it were a matter of 30 or 40 loans, the Minister might clamp down on the information altogether.
It is good for the Government, the House and the country to know where we are going in this regard. When I am told that there is a factory in a certain town that never opened, and I ask a question and find that £110,000, according to the last returns of Foras Tionscal, was poured by way of grant into that factory, and no employment had been created, then the House is entitled to know everything about it on the basis of the Deputy who asked the question not communicating the name of the company in case he might in any way interfere with future prospects or with future opportunities for employment.
We have a very peculiar situation in relation to industry. We are, I suppose, the most under-industrialised country in Western Europe. We have, therefore, a very great opportunity for expansion. That was accepted in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion which gave the targets at which the Government were setting their sights. We were told that industry would have to assimilate those who would leave the land and it was accepted by the Government that people would leave the land. Many of us violently disagreed with that view and believed more could be done to keep the people on the land. However, the Government set their sights and it is on those sights they must be judged.
They indicated in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion that in the year 1965 industry would expand in volume by 7.4 per cent. Again, in reply to me yesterday, the Minister informed me that the actual increase in volume was 3.8 per cent. The increase in Britain, an over-industrialised country, losing her colonies and in grave trouble at the moment, was 2½ per cent. We have here a potentially large labour force leaving school every year and people who have come here have stated that the best goldmine we have is the splendid potential labour force.
The failure of the Government, by almost four per cent, to attain its target is another way of saying that we shall see a reduction in our population.
The target was an average over ten years. The year before it was 9. something.
Very well. Then I will immediately observe that last year they fell below their average by almost four per cent. As a result, a lot of people will emigrate next year. There will not be the expansion of industry to assimilate the boys and girls coming forward from the land. As far as I am concerned, I feel there is need for a new look.
I have the greatest friendship and respect for the present holder of the portfolio of Minister for Industry and Commerce. He is a new Minister. I think he is probably a man who could have a new look at it. However, in relation to our grants, in relation to our loans, in relation to encouragement to people to come here, we have got to have more than the decision made by a Government in 1956 which I, as a young Deputy, supported and which surely, if we are to move forward with the times, must by now be out of date. I suggest that the Minister would profit by making the changes and considering them and devoting his attention to that problem.
The temporary assistance to industry in the payment of 40 per cent of the cost of the British levy is considerable. I think the decision to pay that was a good one. I think, too, that the decision and the mechanics of it whereby, rather than assessing in each case the degree of interference with the trade and giving, instead, a global 40 per cent, or 50 per cent in bad cases, is a good one. My information is that a fortune is owed and that the industrialists have got very little of the money yet. If this is so, I hope that this Vote we are passing today will help in the payment of the money. However, there is a peculiar situation in relation to this in my constituency to which I wish to refer, and that is the fact that there was gross interference with the export business of the Dundalk Engineering Works. Over the past year, the Dundalk Engineering Works have had quite a good export business in Agrotillers, caravans, and so on. They were very heavily affected because, in these high-priced commodities, ten per cent—it was originally 15 per cent—is a very large sum. Even 40 per cent of it, if repaid, would affect the profits situation to a very considerable degree.
We had a press notice from the Government a couple of days ago affecting 700 workers in my constituency. The press notice is of an extremely scanty nature. It does not give the information to the people who work there and to which the people who worry so much about them are entitled. It is not good enough to say the accumulated losses were something over one million pounds. Those of us who have studied this particular situation a little closer than most will know that the pattern of these losses does not give the average situation about which the Minister was talking a little while ago and that, in fact, the losses were largely the result of the first years of the operation of the Dundalk Engineering Works after the closing of the GNR Rail Service depot in 1957.
The scanty information would indicate to a taxpayer that this was a series of companies that had gone wrong, that this was another of these failures about which I have been talking, that this was something that should be written off, that a receiver should be put in and asked to sell as best he could. At this point of sale, let me say that the Government press notice is extremely contradictory in itself inasmuch as it says that when the companies were first formed they thought of a public issue of shares. In the event, however, a public issue was never practicable since the companies as a group have consistently incurred losses. In the last paragraph, the receiver is instructed to prepare the companies for sale as going concerns.
I would remind the Minister and the Government that a public flotation is merely the selling of a company to the people and that if you cannot float it you cannot sell it. Therefore, the suggestion that this receiver would sell as a going concern companies that the Minister and the Government say are not making money is, in fact, a statement which should be examined. However, my complaint is not on those lines because if it were true that these companies were grossly inefficient and were losing a large sum of money up to the present then all wisdom to the decree that there is nothing that can be done except to take the course that has been taken. But that is not so.
I want to say to the House that, as near as I can see from the accounts I have been studying in relation to these companies, the losses in 1959 were £300,000. The losses in 1960, as a result of the winding up of Heinkel, Limited, were £700,000 and the losses in 1961, still as a result of the windingup of Heinkel, Limited, were £500,000. In 1962, in all fairness to everybody, there was a large improvement because of credits coming forward from the winding-up of Heinkel, Limited. However, the losses in these companies last year were down to £150,000 on a turnover that had been trebled in the past three years.
I want to direct the attention of the House to the fact that, with all our eyes open and in agreement, we voted £1,800,000 less than a year ago to Verholme for a subsidy on the erection of six ships. If these companies have now come from a catastrophic situation which in my opinion—and I can only read the accounts—was largely brought about by the failure of Heinkel Limited—to which one could probably attribute £1 million of the loss—and if they have now reached the stage of trebling their turnover in three years, of having one company—Commercial Road Vehicles—assimilated into a group of three, and if the losses last year were £150,000, why should we then take a company and instruct a receiver that no further funds are available to the Exchequer for losses except small funds to prepare for sale— putting 700 jobs in jeopardy—when, not a year ago, we were prepared to walk up these stairs, if necessary, in order to vote £1,800,000 to provide a temporary guarantee in respect of the same number of jobs in Cork city?
I do not want to be parochial about this but one must use examples. I want to suggest that the time has not been propitious, that the manner of dealing with this has not been propitious and, in fact, that we had seen our troubles dissipating. We had seen the new management that was there partially succeeding and we had seen the situation whereby, in a year or so, these funds could have been viable.
Let us remember, also, that, over the past five or six years, there was the founding of the first steel foundry in Ireland; that extreme difficulties were experienced in the quality of production in this foundry; that these difficulties have now been overcome; that the period of their overcoming was extremely expensive but was, of course, entirely temporary and has passed and that we would now look forward in Dealgan Steel Founders to seeing a situation whereby there could be profits in the next year or so. With relation to the relatively minute sum I have mentioned, when such large sums can be voted for other ventures and when such large sums can be given by way of grant and loan to new industries, I believe an umbrella should have been provided by the Exchequer on the basis that the losses would have removed themselves in a matter of another year or so.
If the railway works had been running since, does one wonder that the figure that has been given of £1,800,000 accumulated losses would have been paid as a subsidy to CIE? I suggest also—and I shall be extremely helpful and at the same time charge the Government, but being as anonymous as I can—that the first manager sent down there was a friend of the present Taoiseach: that before he left, the resignation of every executive except one was on his desk, and the only alternative he had was to resign himself; that 300 men lay down in the street and refused to let his car come up the road to the works, and that was when he had gone ahead and contracted with Heinkel in Germany for such a vast sum in purchases of kits for the construction of Heinkel cars; and that representatives of the Dundalk Engineering Company and the Industrial Credit Company had to go to Heinkel in Germany and say: "If you insist on this contract being carried out, we will put Heinkel into complete liquidation and you will get 6d. in the £."
It was after these huge losses had been made that the present management had to take over, and inside 18 months one company was making money. When replying, I suggest the Minister should indicate whether or not my figures, in broad principle, are correct. I believe from reading the accounts they are, and I believe this is one of the cases in which there should have been continued Exchequer subvention on a small scale so that, in fact, over the next few years these losses could have been dissipated. I am not unhopeful that when the receiver sees how the show is running now and perhaps makes some changes —because a new broom sweeps clean and a new mind is always clear—that these companies will become viable of their own volition without Exchequer subsidy and that, in fact, we may see these companies operating satisfactorily before another half decade has passed. I am not unhopeful that this will occur, but I say that at this stage, when we had rounded the corner, and when over the years every Opposition Deputy from County Louth had given the Government all the backing they needed, the decision to bring in a receiver was, in my view, a wrong decision, and I want to protest about it in the strongest possible manner.
The position in regard to the survey at Drogheda is something in which I am particularly interested seeing that I come from a place five minutes away from that town. I agree with the policy of the Government in instituting a manpower policy and putting a Parliamentary Secretary in charge to see exactly how our manpower can best be employed, how best we can ensure that as they come forward they will find jobs ready for them. The drop in the average increase in industrial production will not help but, nevertheless, I think study of the situation is extremely important. Deputy Tully disagreed with me the other day when I was pointing out that there was a situation sometimes in Drogheda when employers could not get certain types of labour—which I still hold; in fact, girls are often quite scarce in Drogheda—but there is in this town, which I regard as one of the most quickly expanding towns in Ireland, a situation in which you have the wrong sort of labour available. You find big, strong workmen queuing up at the employment exchange ready and willing to do an honest day's work but they are not the type of person you could imagine in a new factory like Becton Dickinson assembling disposable syringes.
The flexibility of labour is one answer to it but I think you will always have labour that ought to be flexible but if you can find for the potential industrialist here the information as to whether he will find for his heavy goods industry a supply of manpower in a certain area or for his light goods industry a sufficient supply of boys and girls for the various jobs therein, you will have gone another step forward and have got information which may be more attractive to the industrialists than some things we are already giving them. I understand that this report will be exhaustive in the extreme, that a book thicker than the book Investment in Education will result. I hope it does not become so befogged with facts that we cannot get the argument out of it. I know the work has been done with great energy in Drogheda and I only hope that Drogheda will benefit from the results of this pilot survey before any other place, except possibly another part of my own constituency.
I find the item "Savings on other Subheads, £7,900" a little vague. There is no explanatory section telling us where savings were made. Savings are just as important as expenditure and if perchance we disagreed with savings and thought more money should be spent on certain things, that is a contribution which should be made in the House. The fact that we do not know where savings were made does not help at all. When replying, I wonder if the Minister could tell us where the savings were made.
I should like to advert to various matters arising from the Supplementary Estimate. We are all conscious of the good which the Government did in providing assistance for our industrialists when the British surcharge was introduced in 1964. It is difficult to understand what the situation here would be like today if the Government had not come to the aid of these, the most important section of our industrialists, our exporters, and provided them with this particular subvention.
When the surcharge was first put on, it was 15 per cent. It has since been lowered somewhat and in all the circumstances grants of 40 per cent and 50 per cent must be regarded as generous. I hope the Minister is satisfied with the response from our exporters. Certainly, the amount of money provided here today is an indication that these grants are being availed of and I hope widely by our exporting industrialists. It would be interesting if when the Minister replies he would give some greater detail as to the extent to which exporters of various types of goods have declined to continue their export endeavours, or have rather panicked at the prospect of overcoming this levy and have, in fact, withdrawn altogether from exporting adventures which they carried out successfully in recent times.
This surcharge will cost the taxpayers some £2,226,000. That will be money well spent if it maintains for these exporters the markets they enjoy in Great Britain and in particular, if it assists them to extend these markets, increase the productivity of their factories, and maintain security of employment and, indeed, expand employment. However, we have an ingrained fear that despite the admonitions about free trade being in the offing and about the need for readaptation to meet the sterner competition of the future, many of our industrialists were so shocked by this surcharge that they were inclined to throw in the towel and abandon these valuable markets, with consequent redundancy in many industries.
That is why I hope the Minister can indicate to the House the extent to which we have lost trade with Britain as a result of this imposition and despite the generous State aid, which will amount to almost £2,500,000 in this financial year, to industrialists to maintain their export markets. Like Deputy Donegan, I would like to pay what I would regard as a well deserved tribute to Córas Tráchtála for the herculean work they are doing on behalf of the promotion of exports and trade abroad. I am very much aware of the great work being done in this respect and that the assistance, advice, guidance and encouragement given to so many of our industrialists are fully appreciated. Anything that can be done to expand and improve the good record of Córas Tráchtála is to be welcomed.
I am pleased to see in the Minister's statement that Córas Tráchtála have launched a loan scheme to encourage the recruitment and training of export sales representatives. This is something that was long overdue. It is well known that the civil servants dealing with this matter are to a large extent unaware of the difficulties associated with industry and import-export problems. It is high time that some experts were trained in this field who would specialise in each facet of our industrial potential and assist and encourage our industrialists and direct them into proper fields of expansion. It has often been wondered why our Embassies do not play a more active and responsible role in the expansion of our trade.
It has been alleged that our Embassies have little regard for trading as such, that they are places of entertainment for dignitaries of various countries, and that our officials there do nothing in a practical, national way to assist in the expansion of our trade in those countries in which we are represented. I would ask the Minister to indicate what he is doing to make our Ambassadors abroad conscious that their primary role is to secure new markets for our industrialists and to assist them to find new fields of endeavour in this regard. I feel that our Diplomatic Corps have been trained in the thoughts and ideas of a different era, and that it is high time the Minister, through the Taoiseach, brought it home to them that they have a responsibility in regard to trade and a duty to assist every industrialist to expand trade.
The additional sum for salaries and wages at £70,000 is not a formidable figure, but it is a surprising figure to find in an Estimate two years after the implementation of a national agreement on wages and salaries. It is not a figure that one will find in respect of the ordinary working classes. I understand that this arises as a result of status increases for certain officials in the Department of Industry and Commerce. Status increases may be all right in this respect, but it is difficult to reconcile status increases amounting to £800 with the admonitions at present given to workers that they cannot hope to expect more than three per cent increases in wages without disrupting the economy. I submit that a very bad headline was set for all concerned, workers, employers and the State, when status increases of such a sizeable amount were conceded to any categories of persons in this country.
By any yardstick, I could not see justification for conceding to the vast majority of workers a 12 per cent increase and a floor of £1, and then to talk in terms of three per cent at present, while conceding to another class of citizens not merely the 12 per cent but a status increase which, in many instances, amounted to some £800. Certainly, they must be unique personalities to claim a status of this kind. I have yet to find anyone who in strict justice could maintain that he was of such value to society that he commanded this disparity in income between the top and the bottom.
In regard to the Industrial Development Authority, I was pleased to hear the Minister say that industrialists who go to the Authority for encouragement and financial aid are helped, but like Deputy Donegan, I am doubtful about that inference. My experience has been that where the small industrialist, especially in the rural areas, comes forward with a proposal, however beneficial—indeed in many instances it is a practical demonstration of industry in operation—where there is an employment content perhaps only of a small nature, but which could grow with proper State aid, there has been a disinclination on the part of the IDA to give any assistance or encouragement whatsoever. This is greatly to be deplored. There is something in the suggestion that there is more regard for the foreigner, the man who speaks with a foreign accent and who possesses a cheque book, even though his integrity and enthusiasm might not be the best, as was demonstrated, to our regret, in so many instances by the rapid downfall of those industrial enterprises established by some of those gentlemen.
This matter was brought home to me graphically within recent weeks when I raised in the House a question in regard to the lack of interest in or encouragement for the local inventor of a machine, which has a tremendous potential admitted by the Dutch and the British, renowned in this particular industrial field. It was a matter of great surprise to me, to the House and to the country at large that the Government agencies were completely unwilling to assist in this tremendous venture even though the potentialities of this particular automatic beet harvesting machine, designed, perfected and in operation in the beet fields of Tipperary for a number of years, demonstrated the genius of an Irish inventor. The arduous task of beet-harvesting, the amount of labour involved could be changed, and beet could be uprooted and handled mechanically even to the washing stage.
Nevertheless, this magnificent achievement passed seemingly unnoticed as far as the Minister's agencies were concerned. It took the Dutch to realise the importance of the achievement and to make arrangements, in so far as they could, with the inventor to have it developed, manufactured and made available on the Continent. This indicates a complete lack of regard for the intrinsic worth of the mere Irishman in his own country. While that situation continues there is justification for the inference that there is more regard for the foreigner who comes to the Industrial Development Authority or An Foras Tionscal for assistance.
With regard to the manpower service in Drogheda I am pleased that something practical is being done in this important field. I feel sure that Drogheda was an ideal choice in respect of a survey of this kind.
Hear, hear.
It is a thriving industrial town. There is obviously great scope for the university authorities who are carrying out this survey in that particular town. I look forward to its findings, which I trust will be available soon. In the same paragraph of the Minister's speech, or rather the speech read by his Parliamentary Secretary to us today, there is a statement:
The carrying out of a pilot manpower survey was suggested to the National Industrial Economic Council by the Adaptation Council for the woollen and worsted industry which drew attention to the problem posed for industry by localised labour shortages in certain areas throughout the country and expressed the view that the true picture of the manpower situation was being masked by the published employment figures which showed "a spurious level of availability in all areas."
In my humble opinion this is a fantastic statement. The person who coined the latter phrase could hardly be aware that we have an unemployment problem at the present time running into some 60,000 persons. Is it seriously suggested that the vast majority of that formidable labour force are so unskilled and so little qualified for work that they must be regarded as "spurious"—I will use the word of the Minister—in the context of a manpower policy programme? I repudiate the insinuation that the situation, as revealed by the published employment figures, is spurious.
There is an acute shortage of certain skills in this country and the majority of our unemployed might be categorised as unskilled but that is the fault of the Government's lack of proper training, lack of forecasting of employment opportunities and failure to create more skills. Its purport that the figures at large are spurious is ridiculous in the extreme. It may well be that that is so in Drogheda, that there is a shortage of certain skills in Drogheda, perhaps female labour, as Deputy Donegan adverted to. That may be so, but then Drogheda is a very fortunate town. By and large, there is available, to any prospective industrialist, a vast pool of labour in this country, educated, alert of mind and fully capable of being trained quickly and placed in employment in fair conditions and capable of proving themselves the best workers in the world, as has been demonstrated, not here, but in the many cities and towns throughout the world where the Irish are employed. It is rather a pity that, in making a case for Drogheda, the Minister sought to reflect on the vast labour force in the country.
The Adaptation Council recommendation had nothing whatever to do with Drogheda.
I wonder did the Adaptation Council use the words "a spurious level of availability in all areas"? Whose phrase is that? Is it the Adaptation Council's?
Yes.
In respect of what town?
It referred to the country as a whole and not to Drogheda.
That is something to be deplored.
They said it out of experience.
It was said in the context of one industry, the woollen and worsted industry. How it can be applied to the country at large is something I cannot understand. You have a pool of labour to call on, and, as I said earlier, they are capable of being trained quickly and can prove to be as good workers as any under the sun. I sincerely hope and feel sure that the work in this field which has to be carried out by the Social Science Group of University College, Dublin will be beneficial to the industry concerned, the woollen and worsted industry, of Drogheda and, indeed, the country as a whole.
In regard to the reference Deputy Donegan made here to the statement of this week, which not merely shocked people from County Louth but throughout the whole country, that the semi-State enterprise of which we had reason to be proud in this House, the Dundalk Industrial Engineering Company, was in a state of extreme difficulty, to the extent that a liquidator had been called in. That has come as a deep shock to us all. It is particularly so to the 700 people employed in that industry, I appeal to the Minister to do all he can to save the situation, even at this late hour.
This important town has suffered a number of setbacks in recent times. We will recollect the closing of the important GEC factory in Dundalk which employed a considerable number of people and which, overnight, decided to pull out of Dundalk and transfer its activities to Dunleer. Following fast on that industrial disaster comes the tragic news that Dundalk Industrial Engineering Company is in jeopardy and that 700 men are likely to be thrown out on the unemployment scrapheap. Were this private enterprise, perhaps the shock and dismay would not be too great but that it is a State company is alarming in the extreme. One would imagine that this House would have been told of any difficulties this company was experiencing and that we would not be subjected to this shock announcement by the Government of their intention to introduce a liquidator there.
That prompts me to raise the question as to what is being done by the Government and by the Minister in respect of adequately catering for these unemployed workers, these workers who we now know will be redundant. When I heard the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister introduce this statement, I had hoped that, as he is the person responsible in this important field, he would have something to say on this very important matter. Despite the reports of the Committee on Industrial Organisation indicating the unemployment and redundancy which will arise in freer trading circumstances—and when we have now positively embarked upon free trade with Britain—is it not high time that this House was told precisely what the Government have in mind in respect of the redundancy payments, the retraining schemes and the method for the re-absorption of all these people in alternative employment? I hope that the Minister will avail of the opportunity to end the anxiety which prevails and give to us the long-awaited legislation on this matter.
The Deputy is not in order in referring to legislation on this Estimate. He will get another opportunity to do so.
Surely I am entitled to refer to the redundancy and unemployment which arises?
I am afraid the Deputy will have to confine his remarks to the various subheads, and there is no subhead I can see which would make his remarks relevant. Perhaps he could raise it on the main Estimate.
I shall await a further opportunity on the main Estimate.
I hope the Minister will elaborate on much of the subject matter contained in this short brief here today and explain to us, first of all, how the amount of money arose on this Estimate for the salary scales to which I have already referred. We are anxious to relate this particular figure to the situation which exists in the country at present in respect of the new, we hope, national agreement on wages and salaries. Like Deputy Donegan, I am not opposed to people being paid in accordance with their particular status, their responsibility, their aptitude and particular gifts, but I am concerned about the disparity which exists in the wages and salaries structure. These disparities are wide in the extreme, and it is difficult for the Government to admonish us to show restraint, caution and responsibility if they themselves concede status increases of a size of £800.
The Parliamentary Secretary did not get any.
I am sure he has a distinct status, as a Parliamentary Secretary, and if there is anything going to which he is entitled, I wish him well in that respect.
Not on status, because he is not getting enough.
You could give away what you got before your breakfast—£1,300.
I want to advert briefly again to my desire to see an expansion of industrial effort. I should be grateful to the Minister if he would spell out clearly the function of our Embassies abroad in respect of this important matter. What kind of liaison exists between his Department, Córas Tráchtála, the other exporting agencies, and our Embassies abroad because it is widely felt that the money we expend on these Embassies is not well spent and that they could be performing a much more beneficial work for the nation if they took an active part in the expansion of industry?
