asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce the steps his Department have taken to provide alternative jobs to replace the potential job loss caused by the delayed development of the Du Pont industry in Cork Harbour.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Cork Harbour Industry.
11.
The Industrial Development Authority are making the Ringaskiddy site, previously reserved for Du Pont, immediately available for other industrial projects.
An IDA team have visited Cork to carry out a complete review of industrial facilities and progress in the Cork city area and to consider whether fresh initiatives are required.
Seven new industries with a job potential at full production for about 1,000 jobs will be starting production in the area this year and five of these industries are currently recruiting staff. In addition, expansions by three other industries will provide some 150 further jobs this year.
Two other industries approved for the Cork city area and due to start construction this year have a potential of about 950 jobs.
In that reply the Minister referred to about 2,000 jobs. Will he accept that that number of jobs is entirely inadequate for the Cork area having regard to the present unemployment situation and the fear of unemployment that exists in this area?
I understand the employment difficulty in the Cork area. The Deputy will be aware that it is widespread and is not confined to Cork. I understand the apprehension unemployment gives rise to, both for those in work as well as those out of work. I do not agree the level of new job creation is inadequate. If we think, as so many economists throughout the world are thinking, of a levelling off of the decline, the possibility of improving circumstances in the latter part of this year and in the beginning of 1976, and the movement of existing industries into good times— in addition to the new industries I have mentioned—the employment perspective for the Cork region is an adequate one.
Surely the Minister knows that a special problem exists in Cork. It probably exists in other areas also. I would ask the Minister to do something at this stage to assist the struggling and ailing industries in the Cork area so that some of the jobs now in jeopardy may be preserved. I would ask the Minister, as a matter of extreme urgency, to discuss this matter with the IDA and possibly with Fóir Teoranta.
I think that people who tell it as it is are aware that if anyone appeals to me for aid for any struggling industry they are listened to——
Like Michael Pat Murphy and the fishermen.
Order.
I should like to reiterate that the full range of mechanisms of State agencies are available to industries in Cork as they are to any other place.
Would the Minister accept that his intervention might save a firm in the area?
I would be happy to have a word with the Deputy privately if he thinks I could be of help.