asked the Minister for Industry, Trade, Commerce and Tourism in relation to multi-national companies or other IDA funded foreign companies operating in Ireland; (a) if they are required to furnish annual statements of account to the Minister; and (b) the information that is available annually to the Minister in respect of the range of products manufactured, numbers employed, unit wage costs, and profits made.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - IDA-Funded Foreign Companies.
6.
There is no obligation on foreign companies as such operating in Ireland to furnish statements of accounts to me.
The Industrial Development Authority are provided with the accounts of all companies when they are being considered for grant aid or in cases where the IDA are concerned about a company's progress.
Aggregate data on the principal products manufactured, employment, wages and salaries are available for each sector of industry from the annual census of industrial production and from the monthly and quarterly inquiries conducted by the CSO. Aggregate estimates of company profits are given in the annual national income and expenditure accounts.
None of these statistics distinguishes between foreign owned or indigenous companies. Specific information on individual firms returns to the CSO may not be divulged under section 13 (1) of the Statistics Act, 1926.
Data on employment and unemployment by economic sector is also contained in the annual labour force surveys.
Apart from the normal statistics which are available and which were found recently to have serious flaws in them, when the IDA assist industry coming into the country do they follow up on the companies' projections for job creation? Do they survey the industries which have been established to see if they conform to the targets which they may have projected for employment, product sales and so on? Is such information available?
The IDA keep in touch with the companies as a matter of course to ensure that they achieve the targets for job creation on the basis of which grants were made available to them. That would not necessitate them getting full accounts from the company. They would merely be required to get employment data from the company. The practice in the IDA in recent times has been to develop closer relations with companies under what they call a "company development approach" which involves obtaining more information from companies as a means of encouraging them to continually diversify and improve their operations here.
The IDA keep in touch with these companies once they are established and keep a watch on them?
Yes, but not to the extent of requiring full annual statements of account such as the Deputy mentioned in his question.
Are there any statistics available from the IDA in relation to these companies? If so, are they published?
The annual report of the IDA, which gives a list of the companies who received grant aid during the year, is published. It is possible for the Deputy to get information from the IDA if he goes back over all the previous annual reports. He could get information from the IDA to see how individual companies performed if he wished to do that. The IDA keep in touch with companies to ensure that they achieve their job targets. They do not concern themselves with the profitability of companies unless the company seeks a second grant for some other purpose such as a new extension, training grant or research and development grant and so on. The IDA would look for a full account of what they did to see if they would be justified in giving the company a second grant. In practice they keep in closer touch with the profit trends of companies than the bald answer I gave the Deputy would suggest. It depends on the company and whether it looks for aid.
To what extent are the IDA of assistance to the CSO? The Minister said they do not seek information in regard to the profitability of companies. Last week the IDA indicated that the total profits made by foreign companies in 1983 was £1,200 million. Did they get this figure from the CSO?
I imagine that is an estimate they made themselves on the basis of trends in the industry and the information which I have described. It would be possible for them to make a fairly good estimate. As the Deputy has raised the matter I am prepared to get further information for him on the precise assumptions used in reaching the figure he mentioned. I will communicate with the Deputy.