Deputy H. Byrne has been given permission to raise on the Adjournment the issue of Top Quality Products, Gorey, and the loss of 260 jobs. He has 20 minutes.
Adjournment Debate. - Gorey (Wexford) Firm.
Thank you, a Cheann Comhairle, for giving me an opportunity to speak about this matter here tonight even though I had to ask your permission on four different occasions. This is a very important topic. I am particularly concerned about Top Quality Products, Gorey, who were, and still are to a degree, in the mushroom production business. They also manufacture compost for sale and distribution to their own production units. The mushroom industry is one of the real success stories on the agricultural and horticultural scene. There is a growing market for mushrooms. There is a highly organised marketing strategy in the industry. The horticultural industry should take cognisance of that fact.
Top Quality Products were told they could increase their production by at least 50 per cent and still receive the top price. A receiver has now been appointed and the operation is being wound down. This will result in the loss of 147 jobs for people working for the company in Gorey. Twenty-four satellite growers, almost all farmers, use the industry to support their ailing income. Last year the satellite growers earned £1 million which was a tremendous boost to their own incomes and a massive input into the local economy. Those 24 satellite growers employ 100 people, and hauliers and others are also involved, bringing the total workforce to 260 people. Top Quality Products purchased £120,000 worth of straw for the manufacture of compost last year. The company pay £17,000 per week in wages to their workers
The closure of Top Quality Products will devastate Gorey town and area, already reeling from the effects of the closure of the leather factory, G. L. Murphys, Realta Quilt Ltd., Noritake Arklow and job losses at NET in Arklow putting 1,100 people on the dole queue in the Gorey area where there is an unemployment rate of 21 per cent, 4 per cent above the national average. The latest threat will put the figure at close to 30 per cent or one in every three workers. This is a national scandal particularly in view of the fact that the company can be saved with a little commonsense and a little goodwill. Commonsense is not very common around this Cabinet table and goodwill is non-existent. The company can and must be saved. The book balancing codology we heard so much about will not be accepted any more. It has proved to be an unmitigated disaster. This was shown clearly in a survey carried out recently.
We talk about job losses and we talk about home spun industries using native materials. This is an excellent example of such an industry, but apparently it carries no weight with the Government. The Government are a Cabinet of undertakers. They are burying industries and they are generating their own trade by killing them off. Top Quality Products, Gorey, have been in existence for 12 years. Religiously they kept up their PAYE and other statutory payments. Two years ago they first felt the pinch. Foir Teoranta moved in to help. Now Foir Teoranta, a semi-State body, have called in a receiver even though Top Quality Products were close to achieving viability. It seems Top Quality Products had problems with a professional employee who apparently was not in good health. As a result business suffered. Recently another professional was appointed and the results were immediate and encouraging. Since January the company were producing 45 tonnes of mushrooms a week which was sufficient to enable them to regain viability. Business was improving. Why was the plug pulled on the people of Gorey? Why did the Government instruct Fóir Teoranta to increase the dole queue in Gorey by 260 people and to reduce the earning capacity of the area by in excess of £2 million per year?
The Government did not instruct them to do that.
I do not want to hear that kind of rubbish.
The Deputy does not want to hear the truth.
The Minister is in charge. Fóir Teoranta are a semi-State body.
The Deputy should not make a false statement.
The Minister will have his opportunity to correct it when I and my colleague, Deputy Browne finish.
I will.
I hope the Minister will not give us a load of drivel prepared by the Civil Service. I hope he will talk about what we are talking about.
That is an outrageous statement about the Civil Service.
Why did the Government prevent the farmers of the area from achieving viability? Why did they cause the degradation and misery of unemployment to so many? With a little commonsense and goodwill the day could have been saved. It is not yet too late. Top Quality Products have a market for a further 10,000 tonnes of mushrooms.
The company's fortunes changed at the beginning of the year. Since then they have been improving gradually and the graph is improving steadily. There was an improvement in morale and it was generally accepted that Top Quality Products were recovering. Because of their quality the mushrooms were sought eagerly in the market place. Arrangements were being made for changes in the company. More modern techniques were being considered. Suddenly and without warning the receiver knocked on the door. When a company have turned the corner, particularly with State help, does it not make good sense to allow them to continue to operate? Viability was in sight and the plug was pulled. That is typical of the Government. They never take into account the consequential unemployment or what that unemployment might cost the State in statutory payments.
The questions I ask tonight and the questions I want answered tonight are: why was the plug pulled at this time? Do the Government agree that with a minimum of help and patience this firm can be saved? Do the Government believe that the company can grow, saving jobs and preventing the inevitable misery and social evils which will result from closure? It is time for honesty and straight talk. Let us have some of that tonight. Let us have the answers to the problems of Gorey. The Minister should not try to divert us into other areas. It must be obvious to everyone that the Government have failed miserably to halt the growing trend of unemployment — one of their greatest promises before the last election.
This year 30,000 people emigrated and 30,000 young people were added to the dole queue. Together with the 230,000 people already registered as unemployed, this must be a clear demonstration that the Government are on the wrong track. Ignoring the problem will solve nothing. The problem will not go away. Decisive policies and decisive leadership are necessary and the courage to face up to the problem is required. Running away from the problem is the main reason for the low level of confidence in the Government and in the economy.
Last Friday the Minister for Finance was visiting County Wexford. His itinerary included a stop at Gorey. He was to go on to Wexford for a Fine Gael Party supper dance. All involved in Top Quality Products were pleased that the Minister was coming to Gorey. The local town commissioners, the excellent traders association and the trade union movement had backed an effort on the part of local politicians, some of them from the Fine Gael Party, to encourage a meeting with relevant Ministers. The various groups said they would be prepared to travel to Dublin at any time for this purpose. I am sure that a request for a meeting of these groups was made also to the Minister for Industry, Trade, Commerce and Tourism and I am asking him to tell us why he did not meet those people because no such meeting materialised. Are you telling me that your three colleagues in Wexford——
The Deputy will address the Chair.
When he is replying, I should like the Minister to indicate if his three colleagues in Wexford, who were plagued by the people of Gorey regarding the setting up of a meeting with him, did not approach him in that regard.
I thought the Deputy was talking about the Minister for Finance.
Deputy Dukes was coming to Gorey but Gorey was rocked because the Minister who has the cure for all our ills refused to meet anyone connected with Top Quality Products. However, he visited Ansil Limited which is a vibrant industry. Also, he met with Fine Gael Party faithful while refusing to meet those in Gorey who had problems. The Minister opposite may snake his head as much as he wishes but his colleague passed through Gorey as castor oil passes through a cat. He spent three hours talking to people there but for some reason he was afraid to face the problem of Top Quality Products. On the previous Wednesday the traders of Gorey had sent a telegram requesting a meeting with the Minister but they received no reply. Deputy Dukes says he has no say in the matter now that a receiver has been sent in but as Minister for Finance he has responsibility for Fóir Teoranta. Deputy Dukes sent in the receiver.
The Minister for Finance.
I do not know whether he deserves that full title but he has responsibility for Fóir Teoranta. He ignored Gorey because of his fear of facing the people concerned. Top Quality Products can survive and grow but they need £50,000 to buy one new machine and that machine would guarantee viability. For the sake of everyone concerned I am asking the Minister to count in human terms and misery the cost of the closure of this factory. The Minister must have regard to the positive side. Top Quality Products must be saved. The future of Gorey rests in the Minister's hands.
I thank Deputy Byrne for allowing me to use some of his time during this debate. The recent appointment of a receiver to Top Quality Products has caused grave concern to the people of the Gorey area, an area devastated already by high unemployment. There are about 1,100 people, or 21 per cent of the workforce, unemployed in that area. In the past year the increase in the unemployment level has been staggering but during the past decade, for example, the level of unemployment in the area has increased by a whopping 487 per cent. This is an intolerable situation and one which no Government or Minister can justify. No other town in Ireland has suffered such a dramatic increase in unemployment in such a short period.
During all this time there has been closure after closure of what were once thriving industries such as the leather factory, the infamous new IDA factory in respect of which so much was promised and so little delivered, G. L. Murphy and so on. Other factors that added to Gorey's problems in terms of employment were the Arklow Mines situation, the huge redundancies at NET and Noritake. In addition there has been a serious decline in the agricultural sector, affecting jobs in the services area. All these factors have devastated Gorey as a market town. At a time of high unemployment, industrial development is always the priority but in this context, too, Gorey has fared poorly. Only 3½ per cent of the population of Gorey are employed in manufacturing industry. That is less than half the national average but the final straw for the people of the area has been the appointment of a receiver to Top Quality Products, a develoment that has sent shock waves through the town. This firm have been directly employing 147 people while indirectly, by way of the satellite growers, have been employing about 150 people on either a full or part time basis. Those employees are mainly women, many of whom are the breadwinners in their homes because of the lack of employment opportunities for their husbands.
The firm have afforded an opportunity to young girls to find employment in their own area and that is a very important aspect in a rural area such as the Gorey area. The mushroom industry is vital to many people in Wexford but in the past five or six years there have been dramatic developments in that industry throughout Wexford. There are many farmers and others who depend for a living on the industry. Admittedly, Top Quality Products have had difficulties but my information is that they have turned the corner and are now in a viable position. The appointment of a receiver heralds the threat of further job losses in Gorey. There is big money for the receiver but there is no concern for the jobs of the people involved. As one who has been involved actively in trying to keep afloat companies that were in difficulty, my experience has been that receivers are paid a lot of money for working very short hours. In most cases the companies concerned close.
The spending power of the wage earners at Top Quality Products is vital to the business people of the town of Gorey but if the company should close shopkeepers and others in the Gorey area will have no alternative but to reduce their workforce. I was amazed that the Minister for Finance should refuse to meet representatives from Top Quality Products during his visit to Gorey on Friday last. That was an insult not only to the workers of the company but also to the people of the area generally and particularly to the unemployed. The Minister's refusal in this matter has brought angry reaction not only from the workers concerned but from public representatives and from supporters of the Minister's party. I trust that the Minister who is present this evening will indicate some hope that this company will be able to return to full production. The unemployment problems in Wexford in the past two to three years have been much greater than the national average in this respect. The people of Wexford have had enough of this high unemployment. They have had enough so far as the inaction of the Government in relation to the unemployment problem is concerned.
Minister after Minister has visited County Wexford on business, but nobody seems to know for what purpose. They are certainly not affording any hope to the unemployed of Wexford. The three Fine Gael Deputies representing that county have been a disaster. They failed to recognise the needs of that county and turned their backs on the people. The people of Wexford will, in turn, turn their backs on those Deputies in the next general election and one of those TDs will certainly not be returned to Dáil Éireann. It is imperative that the Minister for Industry, Trade, Commerce and Tourism should designate Wexford as a priority area in relation to unemployment. Questions have been put down in the House and there have been calls every three to four months for the designation of Wexford as a priority area with regard to unemployment, but the Minister has ignored these calls.
I ask the Minister to look seriously at the unemployment problems of Wexford generally and of Gorey. Gorey has been devastated by high unemployment and has had a more dramatic increase in unemployment than any other town over the past ten years.
I was interested to hear the difference in the speeches of Deputies Byrne and Browne. It is interesting that Deputy Browne did not make the allegation made by Deputy Byrne, which is wholly false, that the Government——
We will see from the Minister's answer if it is wholly false or not.
——that the Government or I directed Fóir Teoranta to put in the receiver. As Deputy Browne obviously knows, because he did not repeat that foolish allegation, the Government did not, and no Government do, give directions to Fóir Teoranta in matters of this kind. Fóir Teoranta were established by this House as an independent arm to make commercial judgments in this area.
To whom are they finally responsible? Are they responsible to the Minister for Finance or not?
Deputy Byrne, please do not interrupt.
If I may instruct Deputy Byrne on the fundamentals of legislation, the position is——
We have no Minister for Finance.
The Minister has no need to instruct me. We are equal in this House.
——that Fóir Teoranta are ultimately responsible to this House under a statute passed by this House which gives them the independent right to make decisions of this kind without interference by Ministers in individual cases. There was no interference by the Minister in directing Fóir Teoranta in regard to what action they should take or not take in this matter. Indeed, if the Minister were to intervene in such cases one might as well abolish Fóir Teoranta and have the entire operation run from the Department of Finance. That is not the intention of this House. Deputy Byrne should not try to put about false-hoods about the situation as far as industrial rescue is concerned. It serves nobody's purpose.
Go on. Talk about the matter.
What about unemployment in Wexford?
With reference to the points made by Deputy Byrne, I have no record of receiving a request for a delegation from Top Quality Products, as far as we have been able to check in the time since Deputy Byrne made that allegation. I cannot comment on the arrangements made by the Minister for Finance during his visit to Gorey. I am quite sure he had a very tight schedule and that it is not possible——
Three hours.
—— in such schedules to introduce at the last minute, arrangements——
Surely on such an important matter.
He had to go on to a supper in Wexford. They did not have any supper in Gorey.
——other than those that had been agreed in time. I would like to make a general comment, which may be helpful to those who are listening in a more rational frame of mind to this debate than Deputy Byrne is, about the role of receivers.
We are well aware of that role.
There has always been a perception that the threatened or actual appointment of a receiver sounded the death knell of a company. Of course, this is not the case. There have been many instances of companies continuing to trade while in receivership and subsequently, having been reconstructed, being sold off to continue on a commercially sound basis with the problems which initially led to receivership having been eliminated by the receiver. That, of course, is the aim in this case. It is the aim of the receiver, since his appointment on 19 April to continue to trade with the expressed policy of selling the company as a going concern. I understand that already, since the receiver has been appointed — and Fóir Teoranta may well have been justified in making this decision — that many of the problems of the company that existed prior to the appointment of the receiver have been sorted out. I understand that the arrangements with the contract growers are also working well and that management and unions are co-operating fully to ensure the long term success of the company.
Where will he get the money?
I also understand that the receiver is preparing a prospectus of the company and that both the Industrial Development Authority and Fóir Teoranta are contacting companies in an effort to generate interest in a takeover.
Is the company for sale at the moment?
I said that the receiver was appointed on 19 April. A prospectus has been prepared with a view to a sale being made. Obviously, the information has to be put into a prospectus before there is a realistic prospect of a sale taking place. However, I can assure the House that it is the Government's intention, in so far as they can, through all the agencies that report to various Ministers, to ensure that this company are sold off so that they can operate on a successful basis.
In response to Deputy Byrne, who claimed correctly that there was a good market for the product, I must say that, unfortunately, markets are not enough in some cases. One must be able to produce the product at a price which is significantly less than the selling price. The problem in the case of Top Quality Products was that production costs were simply too high prior to the appointment of the receiver.
There was an improvement recently.
It is with a view to getting these matters in order that the receiver is making the present arrangements. I know that Deputy Byrne has been trying to raise this matter for some time. He may have been more apprehensive about the situation at the time the receiver was appointed than he is now, when he sees that the receiver is not closing down the company, as he seemed to fear and suggested in some of his comments. In fact, the receiver is continuing to trade with a view, having solved the problems, to selling off the company as a going concern.
I have seen it all happen before.
Of course, there is no guarantee that the receiver will succeed, any more than there is a guarantee that any company anywhere in the country will continue to trade successfully indefinitely. However, the intention is to remove the fundamental problems which existed so that the company can be sold off as a going concern. That is all I have to say.
Has the Minister any good news for us?
No hope for the people of Wexford.
The Dáil adjourned at 9 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Wednesday, 8 May 1985.