I raise the subject matter of Question No. 39 of 4th February on the Adjournment because, in my opinion, I did not receive a satisfactory reply from the Minister. In that question I asked him:
If he will make a statement on the proposed closure of the Booth Poole car assembly plant which will result in the loss of jobs for over 140 workers especially in view of guarantees given in respect of the car assembly industry under the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement.
The Minister replied:
I understand that the decision to cease assembly was taken on the grounds that the relatively small volume of assembly was proving uneconomic. I understand further that the company's assembly activities will be undertaken by other assembly plants in the group of companies of which Booth Poole & Co., Limited, is one and that the decision to transfer assembly was taken in the interest of achieving increased efficiency and thereby preserving employment within the group as a whole, at the maximum level consistent with economic production.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce said in a statement on 23rd April, 1968, that he got an assurance under the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement for maintenance of assembly at the general level achieved immediately prior to the conclusion of the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement when assembly operations were at a very high level. He said there was also an expression of intent to expand such assembly operations in so far as this might be consistent with the economics of the operation and the development of the market.
Despite all these assurances and the guarantees given in relation to the car assembly industry, we have had fully assembled cars being imported. These fully assembled cars were previously being assembled by Booth Poole and they are being imported in ever-increasing numbers. Without any advance notice the employees were told they would become redundant. The Minister's office was not made aware of this fact until the afternoon of the announcement, and the Minister has said this. On the Monday afternoon, 1st February, representatives of this company went to the Minister's office and told him they would make the announcement an hour or two later.
That is scandalous treatment of the workers in the car assembly industry, these people who have laboured for years in this business, who find themselves now on the slag heap and who find they will not be re-employable. The Minister for Industry and Commerce must have been aware that this was a very shaky industry. He got the assurance that the same number of people would be employed in the car assembly industry. Despite these assurances he could not give an assurance that these 140-odd people would be re-employed in the assembly which is now being taken over by Brittains, the motor car assemblers.
I maintain that if the same level of employment was to be guaranteed we must have an assurance given to these workers that they will be employed by the new company that has taken over Booth Poole. I could not get such an assurance from the Minister. Indeed, his apathy was perhaps more annoying than anything else, the fact that he took it so casually that he should be informed only a few hours before the decision to make public their announcement of closure. It is showing contempt for a Minister for Industry and Commerce that they should tell him at such a late stage. In a supplementary question on 4th February I asked:
In view of the fact that a guarantee was given that the staff would be retained, does the Minister not think that this was broken by that decision?
He did not answer the first part of the question, but he was very anxious to answer the second part about take-overs and rationalisation. We can have rationalisation, take-overs, mergers, call them what you like, but the real issue here is men, human beings, who are now in their forties and who will not be re-employed as car assemblers here. A car assembler cannot very easily get a job elsewhere.
There is a very high rate of unemployment, 70,000-odd people. It is difficult enough to get a job and I certainly know this from trying very hard for young people, but anyone who looks at the appointments page in his newspaper will see that 35 is the upper age limit for employment.
This is a disgraceful way for Booth Poole to treat workers. I do not think the company have the right to do this. I would ask the Minister to investigate this and demand that these workers be taken on in this new assembly that is going on in Brittain's factory. I made inquiries from the workers in this assembly plant. I am not denying that a small assembly plant is uneconomic, but what I am saying is that the Minister and his Department should have been making these investigations earlier. The onus was on this company to say to the Minister "In twelve months time we plan to cease production and we will now see what we can do to have these people integrated into the assembly plant at Brittain's". This is the least the Minister could have expected from this company, the head of which was a former Member of this House.
The head of the company, who, as I say, was a former Member of this House, has condemned the Government because he says the Government's repressive measures on the expansion of the company have been the cause of its closure. If such be the case I should like to know what can be done even at this late stage to rectify the situation. I should ask the Minister has he had any discussions with him since I put down the question to know what percentage of the workers will be re-employed immediately. I should like to know, also, has he had discussions with the company that has taken it over, Messrs. Brittain. Has he had assurances that these 140-odd people will be re-employed? If we are to have an assurance that the same number will be kept employed in the car assembly industry, I should like to know the number employed in the car assembly industry at this time as compared with 1965 prior to the signing of the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement.
This afternoon I read what the former Taoiseach said about the signing of the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement. I found it a very valuable exercise to read what he had to say. He said everything would be great, there would be no danger to anyone, we would be ensured of increasing employment and increasing prosperity. If this is a sign of what is going to happen even before our entry into the EEC I cannot see anything but a complete collapse of the car assembly industry with consequent unemployment.
No company have a right to make decisions without referring to the workers. Workers have a right to be consulted on matters affecting their own future because they are part of the industry. It is not good enough to say they will be paid redundancy payments. Redundancy benefits mean very little when one is faced with having to live on unemployment assistance for the rest of one's life or face separation from one's family and seek employment in Britain.
I should like to know the number of fully assembled cars which were imported by this company during the last two years. We must know this in order to find out whether they were really making an effort to keep this car assembly plant going or whether they had decided to run down this car assembly plant in order to prove that it was uneconomic. No company have the right to say it is uneconomic if they have been availing of the concessions which would not normally have come into effect until 1975.
One of the Minister's predecessors said that the manufacturers and assemblers of British vehicles had given him satisfactory assurances of their intention to support the continued assembly of their motor vehicles in Ireland on a long-term basis. In return the Government agreed to extend immediately to these manufacturers the duty reductions on fully built-up vehicles which would not otherwise fully mature until 1975. If these concessions had not been granted would this car assembly plant still be in operation? From what I have heard from the workers about the number of fully assembled cars that were being imported, I believe had this concession not been granted this car assembly plant would still be functioning and there would be no signs whatsoever of its closing.
Will the Minister, first of all, arrange a meeting immediately with the owners of Booth Poole and, secondly, seek a meeting with the Brittain car assembly plant and obtain guarantees from them that these workers will be re-employed in the major car assembly plant which has taken over from Booth Poole? This is the least I can ask the Minister to do in order to give these people and their families some feeling of security about their future. If the Minister does this he will be fulfilling the terms and using the guarantees that were promised. I would ask him very sincerely to do this without delay.
