I want to state at the outset that I am very disappointed that the Minister, in his opening speech, made no reference whatsoever to the recent announcement by the Minister for Education that the Government were examining the possibilities of extending the facilities of the Shannon development area to include Limerick and Ennis. This is something that, as the Minister well knows, I have advocated from these benches on numerous occasions. I publicly welcomed the announcement of the Minister for Education but we have had in the past fortnight the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Transport and Power introducing their respective Estimates, two Ministers vitally involved in this proposal and neither of them has given any information or even referred to this proposal announced by Deputy O'Malley.
I am asking the Minister for Transport and Power, when he is replying to this debate, to tell us and the people of Limerick and the people in the Shannon region what exactly is taking place. The Minister on previous occasions here, in replying to debates on Transport and Power, has referred to the suggestion that I put forward that the linking up of Limerick, Shannon and Ennis was a logic development and something desirable.
I recall last year when the Minister not merely mentioned this matter when replying to the debate but he subsequently very kindly sent me a lengthy letter pointing out why such a development was not feasible. To be quite blunt about it, we in Limerick want to know whether or not the Minister for Education was bluffing. We want to know what the intentions are regarding this proposal. Is tithe intention to bring in Limerick and Ennis under the administration of a Shannon development company for the purpose of industrial development? If it is, I would support this move but in view of the fact that the Minister for Education made this announcement at the outset of a by-election campaign in an adjoining constituency and in view of the fact that the two Ministers concerned have made no reference to it in introducing their Estimates here in the House, we are, quite frankly, a bit sceptical about what exactly is intended.
I want to restate my views on this proposal and I can assure the Minister for Transport and Power, the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Education that I will press and we are going to see to it as far as we can that this announcement of the Minister for Education will be implemented and implemented without delay. The Shannon Industrial Estate is undoubtedly making considerable progress. In fact, the Minister, when introducing his annual Estimates, has been able to report new factories and new trading concerns being added on each year. We find from the Minister's speech on page 27 that:
At 31st March, 1967, there were 18 manufacturing and 15 commercial firms operating at Shannon employing 3,244 persons of whom 1,908 were men. Eight new firms were established during 1966-67 and two firms ceased operations. 1,015,150 sq. feet of factory, warehousing and office space were completed or under construction compared with 908,000 sq. feet at 31st March, 1966.
Undoubtedly the expansion of industry at Shannon has been very satisfactory but a situation has been arising which should have been apparent years ago, that the Industrial Estate was expanding but was expanding at the expense of Limerick and perhaps Ennis. I am not qualified to speak on Ennis here but I am speaking on behalf of Limerick. The plain fact of the matter is that the inducements held out to industrialists at Shannon Airport have been such that an industrialist would be foolish to set up in Limerick where the facilities, grants and other inducements could not be compared with those offered at Shannon Airport. As a result, we have had various industries set up at Shannon and no industry established in Limerick in recent years.
I believe that, with the establishment of the 18 manufacturing industries and the 15 trading concerns at Shannon Airport, it is high time now to review the whole position. It is time to examine the potential of the Industrial Estate at Shannon from the point of view of further industrial expansion. It is more important still that the potential of the entire region should be examined. We thought in Limerick, when Deputy O'Malley made his announcement, that this was the intention of the Government and that the Minister for Transport and Power was examining the situation to see if it would be practical and possible to extend the inducements and facilities available at Shannon to Limerick city and to Ennis.
I believe this is a logical development. I believe that from the point of view of the development of the region as a whole there would be considerable advantages if Limerick city and Ennis could be drawn in with Shannon as one development region, because, as I understand it, the number of industrialists who have explored the possibility of setting up plants at Shannon far exceeds the number who have in fact decided to set up plants there. I am also informed that a number of industrialists who examined the attractiveness of Shannon and who subsequently decided that the Industrial Estate there was not suitable would have been very glad to set up in Limerick city if the same grants, inducements and other facilities were available there.
I have it on reliable authority that in at least two cases industrialists who went to Shannon and examined the potential there decided for certain reasons that this did not meet their requirements. In one case, the plant was established in another part of the country and in another case, the firm concerned did not establish a plant in any part of the country. If Limerick and Ennis were added on to Shannon, this south-western region could offer very great attractions, facilities and advantages to industrialists to set up industries there and it would put us in the position, in Limerick and Shannon, of being able to compete with other areas, particularly on the east coast who seem to be able to attract far more industries than we can in the south-west.
We are interested in this development in Limerick, and as a Deputy from Limerick, I certainly will support this measure, if and when it is introduced. The sooner it is introduced, the better it will be, because we are in the situation in Limerick where we have had a considerable amount of unemployment and redundancy and the whole situation from the employment point of view is critical. If Limerick were linked with Shannon from the point of view of industrial development, it would improve the situation considerably. This is a matter of extreme urgency.
Another thing I notice from the statement issued by the Minister, and the notes which he circulated to Deputies, which I found very useful, is that in relation to the Shannon Industrial Estate, when it was established, the idea was that the factories there would utilise air transport and that a considerable amount of freight traffic would offset the then decline in passenger traffic. The figures given by the Minister conflicts slightly what he stated in his opening speech in introducing his Estimate when he said that air freight traffic generated by the Industrial Estate represented one-half of the total traffic, whereas in the notes circulated, he said it represented one-third. Those figures are not at all satisfactory, particularly when you take into account the fact that the Industrial Estate at Shannon was established primarily to generate air freight traffic. In fact, the extraordinary thing is that we now find over the past couple of years that passenger traffic has increased substantially while at the same time air freight traffic has increased but not to the extent one would expect. The Shannon Industrial Estate has not made that contribution to the increase in air freight traffic one would expect.
I see in the notes circulated by the Minister that the terminal freight increased by 21 per cent since 1965 and I see also that he states that the percentage of this generated by the Industrial Estate is only one-third so that what this simply means is that despite the fact that we now have 18 manufacturing industries in the Industrial Estate and that we have a number of other trading concerns, 15 in all, two-thirds of the terminal freight traffic at Shannon is coming from outside the Shannon Industrial Estate.
I referred to this before on previous Estimates and I remember two years ago I made a case for extending the industrial grants and facilities at Shannon to Ennis and Limerick. I pointed out that both places have provided more air freight business for Shannon than the Industrial Estate. It is vitally essential that in future, when consideration is being given to industrialists who wish to set up plants at Shannon, one condition should be that the products it is intended to produce should be products which lend themselves to air transport. We know a number of industries in the Shannon Industrial Estate which lend themselves to air transport. The diamond company is one example and those products lend themselves to transport by air.
The pharmaceutical industry is another type of industry which is suited to air freight. These are industries which can use air transport very economically and efficiently. We have other industries at the Shannon Industrial Estate which load their products on trucks to and from Northern Ireland and deliver them to the ferries and so pass them on to Great Britain. Likewise, the raw material is brought back. We can argue as to whether or not the establishment of the Industrial Estate has been responsible to any great extent for the fact that the airport as such is in the thriving condition in which it is today. It would be, I presume, an interesting study but one which I have not time to carry out.
From his previous statements in the House, I got the feeling that the Minister did not look too favourably on extending the facilities of the Shannon Industrial Estate to Limerick or Ennis. He mentioned that there were considerable difficulties in the way of effecting this, but from what I can gather and from inquiries I have made, there is no very great obstacle in the way. I have no doubt about that whatsoever. I have already said that the inclusion of Limerick and Ennis on the same basis as the Shannon Industrial Estate would add considerably to industrial expansion in the Limerick region where industrial development is badly needed; in fact, much more so now than in any other part of the country.
Looking at the returns for the airport itself, as distinct from the Estate, I find that the figures in relation to passenger traffic are quite satisfactory. Table XVI of the — Minister's notes under the heading "Passengers", shows that there has been an increase of 20 per cent in terminal passenger traffic since 1965 and an increase of 184 per cent in terminal passenger traffic since 1960. While there has been this distinct increase in terminal passengers, there has been a considerable reduction in the number of transit passengers. Since 1965, the number of transit passengers at Shannon has fallen by 11 per cent and since 1960, it has fallen by 58 per cent. This might not seem significant but the net result is that it gives a total increase of 13 uer cent for passenger traffic since 1960, and an increase of ten per cent since 1965.
These figures are much more significant than might perhaps seem from the table. This would indicate the growing importance of Shannon as a terminal airport and that more and more passengers coming into Ireland are terminating their flights at Shannon. In fact, as far as I am aware, although the Minister has not given any figures, the number of transatlantic passengers coming to Ireland from the United States by our national airline continue to increase and well over 50 per cent of those passengers leave the planes at Shannon and terminate their journey there. It would seem, then, that Shannon is being used more and more as the international air terminal by transatlantic passengers.
This leads me to the old argument and the old bogey. I am glad the Minister mentioned it and reiterated the Government's views on the matter. I refer to the continual pressure by the American airlines to get permission to land at Dublin Airport. It also leade me to another matter which is mentioned in the Minister's speech and which, I think, can be taken in the context of the utilisation of Shannon as an international air terminal. The Minister said that plans were being made for extending Dublin and Shannon Airports, to cater for the Jumbo Jets, and the Boeing 747s. These giant monsters of the air will be coming in here in 1971 and Aer Lingus have ordered two.
We will have to look at this whole question realistically. If the figures furnished by the Minister show that an increasing number, or proportion, of the people coming into this country from the United States land at Shannon Airport, I finfid it har to justify the vast expenditure at Shannon and the vast expenditure at Dublin to prepare both airports for the advent of the Jumbo Jets. It would be, and it certainly can be argued, much more rational to extend the facilities at Shannon if, as the Minister said in his speech, Shannon is our international airport. Commonsense then should dictate that we extend the facilities at Shannon and extend that airport to cater for the Jumbo Jets.
I cannot see, and I certainly find it hard to believe, that money is so plentiful that the Government can afford to expend such a vast amount in duplicating facilities at two airports. These aircraft will carry 300-400 people. The manufacturers and some of the American airlines—Pan-Am, TWA and others—want to have the number of passengers reduced in those aircraft, but it will mean that 300-400 people will arrive. To extend facilities, at any one of our airports, to cater for that number of passengers will cost a vast amount of money.
I was at Shannon Airport three months ago when a charter flight from New York touched down on a particular type of aircraft, a DC8 or a stretched version of the DC8, carrying 178 passengers. One hundered and seventy-eight passengers came off that plane at Shannon. I had an opportunity of studying the handling facilities there—customs clearance and all the other factors involved in clearing passengers from an aircraft. I noted the difficulties involved and realised that if this had been a plane carrying a far larger number of passengers, the difficulties would have been doubled or trebled. Therefore, when the Jumbo Jets come in in a few years, carrying many times that number of passengers, preparations involving vast outlay will have to be made.
The place to start with such preparations is Shannon Airport. While I am on this matter of preparing our airports for the Jumbo Jets, I wish to remind the House that the Minister has told us that a firm of consultants has been enganged to examine the improvements necessary to Dublin Airport. In reply to a question by me a couple of weeks ago, he said that plans were in course of preparation for improving facilities at Shannon. These is considerable doubt among the epople in the Shannon area about the intentions of the Government in this respect and perhaps the Minister will tell us why, if it was necessary to engage consultants to examinethe facilities at Dublin, it was not necessary to carry out the same examination in regard to Shannon.
I wish to say also that the people directly concerned at Shannon and those in the immediate neighbourhood have not much confidence in the Department of Transport and Power in the matter of dealing with problems connected with the airport. For instance, I raised last summer in the Dáil a situation which occurred at Shannon Airport at the peak period of traffic, the peak of the tourist season in July. At that time workmen were engaged on a reconstruction job in the duty-free shop Passengers landing there had to shop to the accompaniment of pneumatic drills, hammers and all sorts of other noises. Why it was not possible to have had this work done during the seven or eight months of the off season and why it had to be prolonged into the summer season, I cannot explain. The Minister did not explain it to me in reply to my question, beyond saying that such things happen. There the several months between October and May when necessary improvements should be carried out, and if the Minister's Department bungle a job like that, can he blame us if we have no confidence in the Department's ability to prepare the Airport for Jumbo Jets?
We require more information about the Minister's plans to prepare Shannon for larger aircraft. We need details. I emphasise again that the Minister will have a big job convincing the House and the people of the country that it is necessary to equip two airports to cater for larger aircraft. I do not know whk Shannon cannot be used as the transatlantic terminal, with feeder services to Dublin. This question reverts to the position at the beginning when Shannon should have been designated as the terminal for all transatlantic flights of Aerlínte. If that had happened originally, we should not now be subjected to the pressure we are having from Pan-American and other airlines to fly direct to Dublin.
I am not familiar with the technicalities of aviation but looking at it from the commonsence point of view and assuming that 60 per cent of the people coming to Shannon disembark there and that only 40 per cent go on to Dublin, one can see that when the monster aircraft begin to fly to Shannon and 250 out of their 400 passengers alight at Shannon, it is nonsensical to send these huge aircraft the extra 100 miles with the remainder of the passenger load.
As I have said. I am glad to see that the Minister and the Department are realistic in their attitude to the application of the American airlines to fly into Dublin Airport. However, we must be prepared for further efforts by the Americans. In recent weeks, during which I had not much time to read the newspapers, I remember seeing a heading to the effect that the President of TWA or Pan-Am, or some spokesman for one or the other stated emphatically in Dublin that this airline would be utilising Dublin Airport in the summer of 1968. He went further and said he was so confident of this that his company's timetables were now being prepared and that the times of landings and departures were being printed. This is the type of high-pressure salesmanship we associate with the States and I hope nothing will happen to make the Minister back peddle in his attitude because it would be disastrous from the point of view of the high investment in tourism and in other spheres in the Shannon region, if the American airlines were allowed into Dublin. I sincerely hope it will be possible to give the final answer to the Americans —to tell them that with the advent of larger aircraft, Shannon will be the international air terminal and that feeder services will be provided to Dublin, Cork or elsewhere.
There are numerous matters in relation to the Shannon Development Company and to the airport itself to which I wish to refer. Perhaps I am more familiar with the situation there than most other Deputies and this perhaps explains my devoting such a large part of my contribution to this debate to it.
I have referred now to the Industrial Estate at Shannon, to passenger traffic at the airport and to air freight traffic. There is another aspect of the work of the Shannon Development Company which I think does not get the credit it deserves. I am not in any way reflecting on the Minister. I know he appreciates it and has often commented on it. I refer to the work the Shannon Development Company are doing in the field of tourism in the south-west. As one who has had close contact with the tourist section of the Shannon Development Company, I want to express my appreciation of and to pay tribute to the staff in the tourist section of the Shannon Development Company for the tremendous work they have been doing over the past few years. Many people think the only contribution the Shannon Development Company have made to tourist development in the south-west is a medieval banquet at Bunratty Castle and very often slighting remarks are passed on this particular event. I believe Bunratty Castle and the medieval banquet have been a tremendous success. Some people call it a gimmick: it may be, but facts are facts and the results speak for themselves. Bunratty has proved an outstanding tourist attraction and the medieval banquet has gone from success to success, to such an extent that it is becoming a "must" particularly with American visitors and, more recently, I am glad to say, with English visitors.
The Folk Village at Bunratty is attracting an increasing number of people. I had occasion to spend a day there during the past summer examining the whole set-up. I was quite pleased with what I found. However, it is not merely in the matter of promoting Bunratty Castle that the Shannon Development Company have made their mark on tourism but in other fields as well. I refer now to the increasing numbers of anglers coming to the Shannon region in recent years. I have been closely associated with the Shannon Development Company in developing angling. I made two trips to Britain in recent years to promote, as best I could, the coming of people for an angling holiday to this country. We are fortunate that that region has angling facilities second to none. We have sea-fishing off the coast of Clare and, in the Shannon Estuary, there is game fishing and coarse fishing. The Shannonside Regional Tourist Organisation is, I am glad to say, over the past few months devoting more attention to the angling potential of the region.
The Shannon Development Company have done a good job in tourist development but there is much more that can be done. I sincerely hope that, if we reach the situation in which Limerick, Shannon and Ennis become one industrial development region, this region will also become one development region for the purposes of tourism. I know the Shannonside Regional Company and the Shannon Development Authority work in close co-operation but, of late, people in Limerick feel—I cannot say whether or not there is justification for their complaints—that the Shannon Development Company is forgetting Limerick to a certain extent. Castles have been opened along the west coast. A number of angling centres have been opened in Clare and elsewhere. There is a feeling in Limerick that much more might be done and that much more tourist business could be directed to Limerick from Shannon Airport, thus generating more business there.
I would remind the Minister that we have King John's Castle in Limerick. We have outstanding angling facilities, particularly coarse angling, within five minutes of Limerick city centre at a place known as "the Plassey". We have one of the best game fishing centres in the country at Castleconnell, a few miles out from Limerick. A certain amount of work has been done to develop these centres. I hope it will be possible to give more attention to the Limerick area in the coming season. I think there was a bit of a row, during the early part of last season, between some representative body in Limerick—possibly the Chamber of Commerce—and the Shannon Development Company. What was wrong was that CIE tours from Shannon Airport were not coming into Limerick to enable the tourists to spend money there and to have a meal.
I have always held the view that the future of Shannon Airport depends on the development of the Shannon region, that is, the development of the potential of Limerick city, Limerick county and Clare county. I believe this region forms a natural development area not merely for industry but also for tourism. I am convinced that if the main functions of the Shannon Development Company are extended to include Limerick and Ennis—and perhaps all of County Limerick—it will benefit the region industrially. It will bring a far greater number of tourists into the area and, in the final analysis, will generate much more traffic at Shannon Airport.
While I am on this question of Shannon, I would refer to some points made by the Minister in regard to Aer Lingus. Judging from reports supplied by the Minister, Aer Lingus seems to be making reasonably good progress. I would remind him of a matter I raised in this House on a number of occasions. The last time would be about July, when the Parliamentary Secretary replied. There is a demand for a scheduled service between Birmingham and Shannon. I was informed last July that the information Aer Lingus have leads them to believe that such a service would not be economic. The Parliamentary Secretary did undertake at the time to ask Aer Lingus to carry out a detailed examination of the potential. I am familiar with Birmingham and I have had close contacts with a number of Irish organisations over there and I have been informed, when over there in recent years, that Irish people from the south and south-west regions have been enquiring why they cannot fly direct to Shannon from Birmingham. Statistics which were supplied to me by the Federation of Irish Societies in the North of England indicated that 60 per cent of the Irish population in Birmingham come from the south and west. I would ask the Minister to contact Aer Lingus again and ask them to examine the possibilities of having a direct service from Birmingham to Shannon.
The Limerick Junior Chamber of Commerce have taken up this matter and at their request their counterpart in Birmingham, the Birmingham Junior Chamber of Commerce is carrying out an examination into the matter. All the information I have leads me to believe that there is a demand for this service. In addition to facilitating our exiles coming home on holidays, and making it easier for them, such a scheduled service would increase the number of tourists coming into the region. In the English midlands there is a colossal potential market of angling tourists and our south-western region offers outstanding facilities for them.