Last evening I described the closure of Ferenka as a national disgrace. I deliberately used the word "national" because Irish workers in an Irish plant established under the auspices of the IDA, Irish trade unions and an Irish Government are directly involved.
Whatever degree of responsibility for the closure lies with the ENKA board—and it has been substantial— in my opinion we failed to control and to contain the situation to prevent the loss of 1,400 jobs, of £9 million of taxpayers' money and of damage to our future prospects of industrial development. We are deluding ourselves at all levels if we do not learn bitter lessons from this dispute. Therefore, the truth must be told if we are to learn.
We should keep an objective sense of perspective about the causes and responsibilities for the actual dispute which provided the parent company with a golden opportunity to pull out. We know that unfortunately and tragically some workers in this plant allowed themselves on occassions to be led out on official stoppages. We know that recognised channels to deal with day-to-day disputes, including the recent suspension of six employees, broke down. We know that some individuals persistently favoured unofficial action in dealing with such issues.
Tragically and unfortunately so far as these men allowed themselves to be used, they too have sowed a bitter harvest, and they and thier families must live with the consequences of their action for the rest of their lives. The truth must be told about this. As a rank and file trade unionist and as a member of one of the unions concerned—the ITGWU—and as a former full-time official in that union and with the ICTU, it would be utterly dishonest on my part if I did not make that criticism.
I am also convinced that the plant need not have closed. It is true that the firm was managed from afar with growing and mounting insolvency and with an evident insensitivity in terms of its management. There was also a small group of workers who believed they could do whatever they wished at local level. It is true that in relation to my union the local branch had the greatest of difficulty in obtaining what one would regard as the traditional loyalty of workers in Limerick to a particular union. That is a fact of life; it is the truth.
The Marine Port Union attempted to come into a difficult and ugly situation in what can only be described as a questionable seeking of expansion of membership. As a Labour Party member and as a trade unionist I must be utterly honest about this matter. No matter how one may attempt to justify the strength of feeling on the part of members, in my opinion there is no justification for one union—no matter who it may be —moving in on an unofficial strike situation, enrolling members and attempting to represent them in that situation.
All that is past history but the truth must be told. This Government by their indecision and their reluctance during the period of the dispute to spell out the options as they unfolded contributed as much to the closure of the plant. This motion correctly deals with the contributory negligence of the Government in the closure. It pinpoints the incompetence of the Minister for Labour and the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy in their handling of the situation.
There is one reason why the Government—not merely the two Ministers concerned—stand indicted. The Government have a collective responsibility to advise, direct and encourage individual Minister on the policy line to be adopted in major disputes. The Taoiseach presides over the Cabinet, but it is evident that the Government did not discharge that responsibility at Cabinet level. The policy and hope was one of nervous expectation that if we did nothing everything would work out all right and everyone would ultimately go back to work.
I regret to say that the Minister for Labour must stand indicted. I say this with regret because he is a personal friend of mine. His settlement proposals of 24th and 25th October— issued well after the dispute commenced—were rejected out of hand by the ITGWU and by the Congress, and the FUE did not regard them as remotely contributing towards the prospect of a settlement. We had the understatement of the year when Deputy Mitchell regarded them as being "unusual". Most observers were taken aback by the sheer impracticability of the Minister's so-called flexibility in relation to the proposals. I can excuse the Minister his inexperience, but I cannot excuse a Cabinet that authorised these proposals. I believe that, tragically, they gave hope to those who would fragment trade union organisation inside the job and would disrupt the Congress procedures.
The second reason for the failure of the Minister was his failure to consult with the Industrial Relations Committee of the ICTU in relation to the issues involved. I found it incredible— and I have carried out the most diligent research and discussions with the parties involved—that no consultation took place between the Minister and Congress at formal official level. There may have been a mild unofficial approach at one stage, but there was no actual consultation between the Minister and Congress in relation to this dispute. Needless to remark, there was no consultation prior to the initial terms of settlement. Further comment is unnecessary.
I find it incredible that the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy should come into the Dáil last evening and state:
The proposals on which the two unions recommended their members to return were in substance the same as those put before the unions five weeks earlier by the Minister for Labour.
Why in God's name could they not have been accepted when first put before them? I would ask the Minister if he is not aware that the initial proposals of the Minister for Labour recommended that over a five-month period after resumption of work an officer of the Labour Court would arrange as an interim measure the election of production workers to represent and negotiate with management. Quite incredibly the Minister for Labour also proposed on that occasion that trade union dues should cease to be deducted during the five-month period and that no trade union meetings would be held on the premises or during company time.
These proposals were rejected by the ITGWU and the Congress, and they were regarded by the Limerick Council of Trade Unions as not being conducive to any settlement.
I must confess I was shocked at this analysis of the situation from the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy, because the proposals which the Congress finally put forward and which were ultimately accepted by the workers bore no relation whatever to the proposals originally put forward by the Minister for Labour. If I may say so, I would not contrast even in the Cork sense—the Minister for Labour, myself and Deputy M. O'Leary, his predecessor all come from the one city —the manner of the Minister for Labour's intervention in this dispute with the care and attention given by the Minister's predecessor in his interventions in many equally difficult disputes over the past four years. There have been very many substantial criticisms of the former Minister. But I know of no major industrial dispute where he did not bring about successful settlements, even in the most difficult of disputes, because he intervened with care, he consulted unceasingly with the trade unions and with the employers. Indeed I do not know from where the proposals of the Minister emanated, whether it was some recess of the think-tank or manifesto but, if they are any indication of the future industrial relations policy of the Government, God help those of us who may be called on to settle future industrial disputes.
Now we come to the meeting of 4th November between the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy and the two board members of ENKA. At that meeting the second total lack of initiative on the part of the Government was utterly unveiled. The Minister has revealed only under great pressure in this House and under the prompting and disclosure by the Leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Cluskey, that an offer of extended State involvement was sought by ENKA representatives. I stress the date: 4th November. That was long before the closure or the final decision on the part of the company was taken to pack up its bags and get to hell out of Ireland because the Minister for Labour was doing nothing about it. The Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy blew his top when he met ENKA, became irate, and told them that there was no hope in hell of their proposals being accepted. He in no way attempted to negotiate with the ENKA representatives when they put their proposals before him; he simply blew his top and sent out his public relations officer from the GIS to tell the powers in this country that there were hard, tough and difficult words between them. Then he issued a statement saying there would be no further statement from the Government and he said, incredibly, no further statement from ENKA in this regard.
I think we are correct in surmising from that incident and from reports in the newspapers, that the Minister had worked himself into an impossible situation with the ENKA representatives, so much so that, in my opinion, tragically, these representatives went back and field yet another negative report before their parent company board saying that they could not make head nor tail of the situation—the Minister for Labour was not doing anything; the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy did not know the hell what he wanted to do; the Marine Port Union was not likely to do any better than the Transport Union, and the thing was in such a shambles they were finally making a recommendation to their board to pack up and get out. And they used the phrase to the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy, which was disclosed by the Minister last evening, of adopting a lower profile of, in effect, getting out, and then the Minister knew that situation.
That pinpoints the clear negligence on the part of the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy. I have rarely seen such abject abdication of responsibility by a Minister of State. I would contrast the inaction of this Government in relation to keeping Ferenka in operation with the flush of expenditure, the sudden interest, for example, of expenditure of £2 million of State moneys in payments to mostly absentee shareholders of a bankrupt bank, the Irish Trust Bank. What a rush Deputy Colley was in to pay out that money to keep a tiny staff already in other employment, to buy off a bankrupt concern in that regard. We should remember that touching concern of the Minister for Finance about that outfit, when we see the double standard in relation to Ferenka, with nothing in terms of involvement and not a word from him.
Here is the party which apparently tore up a proposal of ENKA which was a negotiating document. Those of us who have ever met multinational companies—and I, as a trade union official, have met many of them over the years—know that first documents are no more than negotiating ones. There was no effort made by the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy to go back to them and say "Look, that is not on. Meet me again next Monday. I am sorry, we could not possibly wear that; the IDA could not possibly wear it. We could not put it before the Dáil. We would have a situation which would be, quite frankly, impossible for the Government to accept."
Here is a Government which gaily spent £80 million on rates relief for people who have homes and jobs, but who could not, apparently, find a brass farthing for Ferenka. Here is a Government who could spend £20 million on motor tax relief for people who have cars and jobs, but who could not even contemplate expenditure of £500,000 to keep a factory going at least until Christmas when we might be in a position to talk turkey to multinationals in the language they know. They were not impressed by the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy nor, unfortuantely, by the Minister for Labour.
Therefore we have a situation in which we must strongly challenge the Minister for Labour to lay the proposals he got from ENKA before the House. The company is no longer in existence, is going out of existence in ten days' time, on the final proceedings in the High Court and so on. We must now ask for the disclosure of these documents to discover what exactly was the situation. Confidentiality will no longer be breached because the company is in liquidation. If the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy is in such a rush to release the internal agreements with Bula, Tara and the devil-knows-what, he should not have much difficulty in releasing the documents in relation to Ferenka.
What are the future prospects of a solution to the outbreak of similar disputes in this country? I do not believe that simply because the Government have made an unholy bags of this situation we should lose our nerve in this critical situation. Damage has been done, but let us not compound it by putting forward bad solutions to avert further disputes of this nature. We should cast from our minds some of the simplistic solutions put forward by some hysterical commentators. We even had the distinguished parliamentary correspondent of the Irish Independent proposing a system of mandatory affiliation to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions—God knows voluntary affiliation is difficult enough to achieve in this democracy. He would even have mandatory cooling-off periods. The Irish Exporters' Association went half-mad. They proposed a banning and sending off to Mountjoy of those who might, on occasion, lose their nerve, their sense of democracy, their sense of working-class solidarity, their sense of trade union affiliation and who might go out on unofficial strike. As we know these solutions can work only in a totalitarian system of industrial relations, in a Gulag society where, frankly, mandatory sanctions cannot be applied. Therefore, I am surprised that those kinds of proposals should be put forward. In the final analysis we must depend on the innate sense of democracy, of decency and loyalty of fellow workers to one another to avoid these kinds of situations; not to be led by the nose by anybody, no matter how extreme may be the situation, to take their decision on a straight ballot, majority decision basis inside trade unions in the traditional sense of all that is best of trade unionism as we know it in this country. Since there are two sides in industry, needless to remark bad management, insensitive management, ineffective management must be eliminated if we are to avoid the provocation of such outbreaks.
It has been suggested by some commentators and apologists for this closure that the factory should never have been set up in the first instance here. I take that as a slight on the workers of Limerick. Deputy Lipper and Deputy John Ryan who represent the vast bulk of those workers regard that as arrant nonsense. I do not believe that the management decision-making structure was so bad that it could not have been remedied ultimately. It could have been if the factory could have been kept open. Admittedly it was very diffused, it was difficult. I saw some reports, including consultant reports, in relation to this company, but I am quite convinced it could still have been kept open.
We hear a lot of nonsense about four-shift systems which were conducive to absenteeism. There was a serious problem of absenteeism in one section of this plant, but it was not universal within the whole of the company. There was no such thing as 25 per cent absenteeism throughout this plant; there was in one particular section where the work processes were very demanding. While these were difficult problems I in no way accept that they were insurmontable. I believe they were soluble with patience, goodwill and understanding on the part of all concerned, particularly a Minister for Labour with understanding and appreciation and the capability of going into that plant and ensuring it was put back on the rails.
There are a number of fundamental questions which must be asked of this Government in regard to the establishment of Ferenka some six years ago when Fianna Fáil were in office. Was this project—and this is a serious question—and its location in that area in the first instance sponsored and favoured by the IDA or was it a decision of the Government to establish the plant in Annacotty? Were the IDA or SFADCO satisfied that the location and the labour catchment were adequate, or was this decided at a Government meeting at the behest of Deputy O'Malley, Minister for Justice, at the time? Was the equipment and technology up to date? Was the equipment modern? Was it of the most modern design even six years ago? The answers to these questions will explain to some degree the outcome of the situation. I would exonerate the IDA in large measure in relation to this dispute. I believe the nightmare Ferenka became could have been avoided had the original decision to establish the plant been taken only after the most careful consideration and study.
Finally, there is the question of the future prospects of reopening this plant. I would wish to see production resume. Quite frankly, I do not see any prospect of the plant being re-opened as a workers' co-operative. Such is the climate of relations and the whole structure of the technology of this particular product and the marketing problem thereof, that I do not see a realistic prospect of a co-operative. In normal circumstances I would favour such a concept, particularly in relation to small industries, but, with a highly integrated product like steel cord, with its technology and markets, the proposal does not seem to me to be realistic. The best proposition at the moment is, before it slides into oblivion in terms of liquidation, that we ask the Government tonight in a positive and constructive sense, that we ask the Minister for Labour and the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy, in conjunction with the IDA to ensure that they at least arrange for this plant to be taken over by another manufacturer, perhaps capable of handling steel cord material, and operate it as quickly as possible.
